Announcement:Hello, readers! I won't be posting any new chapters for the next two weeks as I'll be focusing on preparing for my exams. I might still do a bit of writing during my free time, but I'll hold off on publishing anything until after the exams are done.I'll see you all in two weeks!
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Bjorn sat near the prow with the cloak drawn tightly around his shoulders. His Blonde hair was still wet from the earlier fog and sea spray. He looked ahead, towards the growing clarity of the coastline, but his gaze was distant, his mind was a turmoil of fragmented images and troubling new information.
The exhaustion from his ordeal in the storm still clung to him, an ordeal he couldn't actually recall, though the worst of the weakness had passed, his body was already mending with an unnatural speed, but the blank space in his memory was unsettling. He knew he had collapsed. He knew there had been a terrible storm. The crew had told him the rest, and it just made no sense.
Behind him, Arne and Thorstein finished securing the now-useless sail. Rollo sat on a thwart, flexing and rotating his left arm in slow, deliberate motions, trying to shake off the numbness. Progress was slow, and the frustration showed in his clenched jaw and furrowed brow.
Bjorn's voice was quiet when he spoke and his brow was furrowed in genuine confusion. "So… you are telling me I was… speaking… to the storm? And while I did that, Rollo reached out to touch me, and then lightning struck him?" He struggled to connect their fantastic tale with any feeling or memory of his own.
Arne, coiling a rope, shook his head earnestly, his voice was low and filled with an awe that Bjorn found deeply unsettling. "Not just the storm, Bjorn. It was Thor. You spoke directly to Thor. We all heard it. We all saw it." He paused, his eyes were wide as he relived the memory. "And after you… after what you did… the storm simply broke." He gestured with a calloused hand to the now clear path of water behind them, where the sea was calmer and the sky brighter. "He let us pass. That is how we made it here. You… you saved us, Bjorn. Thank you."
Bjorn turned then slowly, his movements still feeling a little disconnected from his will. His blue eyes scanned Arne's earnest face, then Thorstein's. He felt a headache beginning to throb behind his own eyes. "Tell me exactly what I said… to … Thor." He needed facts, data, anything to make sense of their story.
Thorstein shifted his weight, running a hand over his beard. He managed a small, uncertain grin. "Well, it was not like any prayer I have ever heard, if that is what you are asking. You did not sound like you were asking for anything. You sounded… angry. But strangely calm, too. As if you knew exactly who was listening, and that you had every right to demand their attention."
Arne nodded eagerly with his face animated. "Right, right, that is it! You said something like: 'I know who you are.' You said that, clear as day. And then… then you called him 'Thunder-God'… uhm, what was the rest of it, Thorstein?" Arne frowned in concentration, his lips were moving as he tried to recall the words.
He paused, then his face cleared. "Ah! You said: 'TAKE SOMETHING GREATER!' That is the part I remember best. You shouted it, Bjorn, right at the sky, like you were daring it to strike!"
Bjorn breathed in slowly. He repeated the words under his breath with his voice almost inaudible. "Take something greater…" A wave of sheer disbelief washed over him. Me? I said that? To a god? The jarring thought echoed with the voice of the pragmatic engineer he once was. Gods? Are you actually fucking kidding me? He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up but suppressed it.
This whole world reeked of theatre and symbols and rituals, painted over ignorance with blood. The divine? No. It was superstition wrapped in tradition.
It was all nonsense. It had to be.
Yet there was no denying the presence of something extraordinary, not as his right hand found the rune-like mark scorched into his left shoulder.
Then Floki, who had been silently carving a small piece of driftwood with his knife, looked up, his eyes were bright and unsettlingly knowing. "You said exactly, 'If you demand Fear, then take something greater,'" Floki affirmed with his voice carrying its usual note of cryptic certainty. He paused with his gaze intense as he looked at Bjorn. "The gods will do just that, Bjorn. They always do. For they give with one hand, and they take away with the other. You have made a demand, or an offer. So you should be prepared for their answer." Then a long, uncomfortable silence fell after Floki's words.
It was Rollo who finally broke it, his voice was a low, rough grumble from where he sat nursing his injured arm. "So, nephew… how did you do it? How did you make it stop?" Bjorn turned to him, his expression genuinely blank. "Do what, Uncle?"
Rollo frowned, his brow furrowed with pain and a deep, simmering frustration. "Talk to the gods! Command the storm!"
Bjorn raised an eyebrow with a faint, dry tone entering his voice. "That is a good question, Uncle. One I am trying to figure out myself, since I seem to have slept through it." He looked at Rollo's bandaged hand. "Though you sound angry. I hope whatever I supposedly did, I did not strike you?"
Rollo scowled, shifting uncomfortably, "Angry? I can't even feel my own damn hand! My fingers are numb and they barely move. And now, just before our first raid into the Western Lands, I can't use my left hand at all. So tell me, should I be happy?
Bjorn's expression softened slightly. He processed Rollo's description of the injury; numbness, burns. He tried to recall what he'd been told about Rollo reaching for him. "I am sorry for your injury, Uncle," he said, his voice was really sincere. "But I truly do not remember any of it." He paused, then a thought occurred to him, a way to perhaps deflect some of Rollo's bitterness. "But perhaps… you should feel proud. Who else among us can say they were struck by Thor's lightning, and lived to tell the tale? That is a story few can claim."
Rollo opened his mouth to retort, to vent more of his pain and frustration, but something in Bjorn's sincere gaze and the genuine lack of memory made him pause.
Then his thoughts drifted to his golden brother who always stole the light, who danced in the favor of their parents, men and gods alike, didn't have this. Whatever this was.
A grin spread slowly across Rollo's face. Cold, eerie, and almost amused.
Ragnar, who had been standing near the mast, listening quietly to the exchange with his face unreadable, now moved towards them. He stepped across the slick wooden planks with his usual quiet ease and rested a hand on Bjorn's shoulder, it was a light touch, but firm and reassuring. His voice was warm. "Do not let their tales burden you now, Bjorn. Or your lack of memory of it." His gaze included Rollo and the others. "What is done, is done. The gods have had their say. Now, look." He gestured with his free hand towards the horizon ahead. "We made it."
Bjorn turned, following his father's gesture. Where there had been only fog land for so long, now there was a definite dark green line against the horizon.
The crew, those not already staring, went quiet as they rowed with their gazes fixed on the approaching shore. The silence that fell was not fearful, it was reverent, filled with an almost painful hope.
Bjorn looked at the new land, then spoke quietly, more to himself than to anyone else. "Take something greater…" He did not know what it meant. He did not know if he had truly said it. But as he looked at the shore ahead, a shiver of profound unease settled deep within him.
Behind him, Rollo muttered, his voice still laced with pain but now also with a grudging anticipation, "Well, it had better not be my arm he decides to take, then."
As they drew closer, details began to emerge. Patches of paler green that might be grassland. No mountains like the ones that cradled their fjords at home, but gentler hills. The air was filled with the cries of gulls, but now different birdsong could be heard too.
Ragnar stood at the prow with one hand resting on the dragon's carved neck, the other holding Bjorn's compass, though his eyes now needed no aid but their own keen sight. He scanned the coastline intently, searching. His earlier smile of triumph had settled into an expression of sharp, focused anticipation.
The initial euphoria of sighting land began to transform. The laughter died down, replaced by a more business-like attitude. Men began to check their weapons. The rasp of whetstones on axe blades sounded again. Shields were pulled from where they were lashed and their painted surfaces were examined.
Their eyes, moments before wide with relief, now held a different light; the hungry gleam of warriors approaching a target.
"There," Ragnar said suddenly, pointing to a place where the coastline curved inwards, forming a sheltered bay with a sandy beach. "A good place to put her ashore. Hidden from the open sea." He gave orders to the steersman, and the Ship angled towards the chosen spot. The men at the oars pulled harder, their grunts now were synchronized.
The water became shallower, its color was changing from deep grey-green to a lighter, sandy brown. "Oars up!" Ragnar commanded. With a clatter and scrape of wood, the oars were pulled in and secured. The longship glided forward on its remaining momentum, then, with a soft, grating sound, its keel touched the sand of the beach. It slid a few more feet, then stopped firmly grounded.
"Out!" Ragnar yelled, already vaulting over the side into the knee-deep, surprisingly cold water. "Leif! Arne! Thorstein! Secure her bow!"
Then men followed, a wave of grim-faced warriors dropping into the shallows. They held their axes and shields high to keep them dry.
Bjorn swung his legs over the side, the chill of the unfamiliar water cleared some of the lingering fog from his own head. He joined the others with his shoulder bumping against Erik's as they put their weight against the ship's hull.
With collective grunts and rhythmic shouts of "Heave!", and the straining of muscles, they pushed and pulled the heavy longship further up the sloping beach. The keel cut a deep groove in the wet sand, until finally, with one last great effort, the Ship rested securely on the sand, well above the reach of the normal tide with its dragon head staring inland.
For a moment, no one spoke. They stood with water dripping from their clothes, breathing heavily from the exertion and simply taking in their surroundings.
The feeling of solid, unmoving earth beneath their feet after days on the restless sea was a profound relief, yet also strangely unsettling.
Ragnar was the first to move with purpose. "Alf and Alvis, you two young men stay with the ship. And take positions on those dunes." He pointed. "Keep watch. Signal if you see anything approach, from sea or from inland."
The two young men nodded and moved off immediately with their shields slung on their backs and their axes in hand, to find vantage points.
Ragnar then turned to Rollo, who was leaning against the gunwale.
"Brother," Ragnar said, his voice softer than usual, "Your hand is still a hindrance. It's better if you guard the ship with them. A strong mind is as good as a strong arm for a watchman."
Rollo looked down at his useless left hand, then at Ragnar. He said nothing, there was no need. Ragnar was right. Out there, with one hand, he'd only slow them down. He gave a short nod. "I'll keep her safe." But his silence held more than acceptance. His eyes betrayed the bitterness he wouldn't voice.
"The rest of you," Ragnar continued with his gaze sweeping over them, "gather your weapons. We move inland soon to see what welcome this new land offers."
Bjorn stepped further onto the dry part of the beach with his boots sinking slightly into the sand.
And they moved with a practiced quiet and each man was alert with his senses straining for any sign of danger in this new, unknown land.
Floki's movements were light and quick as always, he was scouting slightly ahead with Ragnar and Bjorn by their side.
As they crested a low rise, the settlement came into clearer view. Stone buildings, they were grey and solid and clustered together. A slender stone tower stood beside the largest structure, the one topped with the strange symbol of two crossed pieces of wood.
The faint smell of woodsmoke they had detected from the sea was stronger here, and now, another sound reached them; a faint, rhythmic chanting, and then more urgently, the panicked clang of a bell.
"They have seen us," Ragnar murmured with his eyes fixed on the settlement. He held up a hand, and the party halted, sinking lower into the cover of the scrub.
Before them, perhaps two hundred paces away, was a low stone wall, about the height of a tall man. In the center of the wall facing them was a wide wooden gate, its planks were dark and weathered.
The bell from within the compound was ringing more insistently now.
Bjorn stared at the settlement and a slow smile touched his lips. "Lindisfarne, huh," he murmured.
"The gate looks old," Thorstein observed in a low voice, squinting. "The wood may not be strong."
"Arne," Ragnar said with his gaze still on the gate. "Your axe will make short work of it. Leif, Thorstein, cover him. The rest of you, be ready to follow when it falls."
The men nodded, their expressions were grim and determined.
Bjorn studied the wall and the gate. The wall was indeed man-high, built of rough stones. His mind quickly calculated the effort needed to scale it and opening it from the inside versus breaking the gate. The gate, though old, looked sturdy enough to take some time.
He gripped his axe and waited for the gate to fall. For now, the most important thing was to watch how these men, who had raided and bled beside each other, moved as one.
Arne moved forward from their cover, breaking into a run towards the gate with his axe held ready. The other men fanned out slightly behind him, Ragnar and Bjorn among them, poised to charge.
Arne reached the gate, and his first axe-blow struck the wood with a dull thud. The sound was answered by a fresh wave of frantic clanging from the bell tower and what sounded like panicked shouts from within the compound.
Arne swung again, and then again.
The Vikings waited with their eyes fixed on the slowly yielding wood. Bjorn watched the gate, noting where the wood was cracking most, anticipating the moment it would give.
Minutes stretched until finally, with a loud, tearing crack and the screech of metal, one side of the gate sagged inwards, then burst open, hanging crookedly from a single hinge.
"Now!" Ragnar roared, his axe already raised. He surged forward, through the broken gateway. Bjorn was a mere step behind him with his small axe held ready and his eyes scanning for threats as he burst into the monastery, even though he knew none would come.
The rest of the Vikings roared their war cries as they followed.
The sounds of Viking war cries were now mixed with the terrified shouts of the robed inhabitants.
The raid on Lindisfarne had truly begun.