The Fell Deeds of Fate - The Viking Hasting's boldest adventure yet!

Join the Viking Hasting on his most daring raid attempt yet: the city of Constantinople. Check out this exclusive excerpt for free!

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✨ PRAISE FOR THE FELL DEEDS OF FATE ✨

The Book Commentary: "The Fell Deeds of Fate is richly detailed, conveying the harsh truths of Viking life and the visceral landscape of Northern Europe. From fierce ocean battles to intimate moments of domesticity, Adrien creates a world where the elements play an integral role in shaping the characters' fates, reflecting the brutal yet vibrant nature of the Viking Age. The prose is delectable, and the overall writing is cinematic.

Reader's Favorite Book Reviews: "The Fell Deeds of Fate is a masterful blend of historical fiction and mythological undertones, making it a must-read for fans of Viking tales and epic sagas. Adrien crafts a world as brutal as it is captivating...highly recommended."

Ian Stuart Sharpe, author of The Vikingverse: "CJ Adrien's Fell Deeds of Fate is a riveting journey through time, delivering a Viking Age saga for the ages. A masterwork filled with thrilling encounters and dramatic twists that holds you captive till the very last page."

J.M. Gillingham, author of the Ten-Tree Saga: "C.J. Adrien has laid forth another saga worthy of the heroes of old. With many narrative tie-ins and continuations from Adrien's The Saga of Hasting the Avenger trilogy, new and old fans are in for a ravens-feast of sharpened steel, shining silver, and long-hidden secrets!"

✨ PRAISE FOR C.J. ADRIEN ✨
🔥 “C.J. Adrien places the reader into the thick of the tale... A must-read for those who enjoy Viking stories.” – The Historical Novel Society
🔥 “C.J. Adrien packs a full force of realistic history and excellent knowledge into his novels.” – Reader's Favorite
🔥 “C.J. Adrien steeps us in period detail and political backbiting in a richly imagined world.” – Kirkus Reviews

From the inside flap:

For Hasting the Avenger, fame and glory were supposed to last forever.

Two years after the legendary sack of Paris, Hasting remains haunted—not by his triumph but by the bitter twist of fate that Ragnar’s name made it into the songs of the Skalds and not his. Drowning in resentment and drink, he has become a shadow of the warrior he once was. When his wife divorces him, strips him of his wealth, and takes his son, Hasting’s world collapses around him.

Then, a chance reunion with his old comrade Bjorn Ironsides sparks an audacious idea. He will outdo Paris by accomplishing something so grand and unforgettable that the world will never again question his legacy. His target: Miklagard, the Great City of Constantinople.

Driven by a desperate need to prove his worth, Hasting embarks on an epic journey across roiling seas, icy rivers, and untamed lands, rallying old allies and clashing with powerful new rivals. To succeed, Hasting must confront the root of his obsession with immortality and the cost it demands, not only of himself but of those who follow him.

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THE FELL DEEDS OF FATE, CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT: SELFISH AND WICKED

It is true what they say, that I was cursed the day I sacked Paris. Fame, glory, and great wealth should have been mine, but they were stolen. Another took my place among the skalds and scribes. By a cruel twist of fate, the name the Franks remembered from my meeting with Charles was that of my ally Ragnar, who no more propelled us to victory than the goats we kept for food. I conquered Paris. It was mine. And it was I who should have been remembered.

Embittered by the usurpation of my deeds, I resigned myself to my island. I would start a family with my new wife, Reifdis, the daughter of my former ally, Jarl Thorgisl, and I hoped I might find respite. At first, she inspired in me a desire for peace, to raise a family, and to let the world’s woes pass us by. We had a Royal Charter signed by the Celts and the Franks to own the land we cultivated and a hirð at our call to defend us. The gods gave us many blessings, but they always collect on their debts. Peace was not my fate. No, the beast in my heart beckoned. It called to me. My restlessness made me irritable and discontented, and my behavior drove Reifdis mad.

On the day the gods decided our first child should join us in this world, two years after I returned from Paris, distant sails dotted the pale blue horizon to the west. It was a clear spring day. Flowers sprang up in the fields, the birds sang their songs, and Reifdis’ moans of agony rang out across our village as the men donned their arms and armor and readied for battle.

I stayed with Reifdis in our bedchamber as long as I could while her midwife worked to relieve her pain. My wife stood in the corner of the room, her hands pressed against the wood-planked walls, standing over the mud her water had made when it hit the ashen floor. I had fought countless battles and witnessed many horrors, but none had prepared me for the fear I felt watching Reifdis fight for her life to create a new one. And yet, as much as I wanted to stay with her to see it through, the wider world drew me away with a forceful knock at the door.

“Fuck—off!” Reifdis roared.

The fury of her growl gave me pause. I slipped out of the room to find my húskarl, or head warrior, Bjarki, dressed for war and ready to set sail. He was an older man with a broad face, striking red hair, and a thick beard braided with Frankish glass beads.

“The men are ready, Hasting,” he said.

“The baby is close,” I said.

“The men are waiting,” Bjarki insisted.

He was right. As much as I wanted to witness my child’s birth, I had a duty to my people. I nodded and slipped back into the bedchamber.

“I have to leave now,” I said.

“Go,” she groaned between labored breaths. “If there’s one thing you’re good for, it’s fighting. If by some luck I survive this hell, I don’t want my baby to be killed by Danes or Saracens.”

She let out a reckless laugh, but her pain gripped her and brought her back down. Her courage and grit shined through even in this most dangerous of times, and despite her cutting words, I admired her for it. I tried to kiss her on the cheek, but she swatted me off, and I fled.

Bjarki and I marched with all due haste to our ships. Mine was a warship with thirty-two oarlocks named Sail Horse. She had a prow carved in the likeness of the serpent Nidhog and a checkered sail of blue and yellow—the colors of my house. I inherited her from my first captain, Eilif, who died at the Giant’s Throne, and I had owned her for over ten years. She had been my most reliable and faithful companion.

Bjarki boarded his ship, which he had named Oak Raven. She was a larger warship than Sail Horse, with sixty oarlocks and a simple post for a prow. He had offered her to me since it was the largest of our ships, but I could not part with mine. Our third ship, Riveted Serpent, looked identical to Sail Horse except for the simple post for a prow. She belonged to one of our other hirðmenn named Ake. Ake was, like Bjarki, an older man, perhaps in his fifties, with greying black hair and a narrow jawline under a hooked nose. He had served Reifdis’ father in Ireland before joining our hirð out of loyalty to her.

I stepped up to the prow, riding Sail Horse like a steed over the water. A cool breeze brushed back my long, curly brown hair, and the waves crashing against our hull sprayed the air with salt. It brought me back to when I first rode the ship’s prow with my friend Asa. We were children then. It had been my first journey to the coast of Armorica, which I now called my home, and I had fallen in love with the richness of its land and sea from the moment I first saw them.

Sail Horse crashed into a rogue wave, jolting me out of my memory and back to the task at hand. Closing in on our prey, my crew lowered our sails and set our oars to water. The shift in the ship’s tilt lurched me forward, forcing me to catch myself on the gunwale. Toward the horizon, the shapes of hulls and sails lurked like shark fins over the waves. They had three long and narrow ships with two triangular sails overhead. When they saw us lower our sails, they steered out of the wind and in our direction, using their oars to gallop at us. It was a bad sign.

Bjarki steered Oak Raven up beside us, close enough so we could speak. He had donned his maille shirt over a wool overcoat, with a gold-tipped leather belt tied around his waist. He leaned over his gunwale, sloped in the shoulders, and shouted, “They’re galleys.”

Galleys are warships, or at least the most common warships sailed by the Franks, the Celts, and the Moors. They have long and slender hulls, not unlike our ships, but they are built by laying the planks edge to edge and sealing them with caulking. It makes their hulls strong but inflexible and heavy. Our ships overlap the planks—or strakes—making them far faster, more flexible, and able to navigate in shallower water. Galleys have a large sail at the center and a smaller one in front of it, and like our ships, they use oars to maneuver in close quarters. But unlike ours, one cannot tell how many men they carry by how many oars they put into the water. Their fighting men do not row as ours do.

These galleys flew a black flag, the symbol of Moorish raiders. And the Moors had a vendetta against our kin. Moorish raids in Francia had started long before the Danes and the Northmen arrived, but the frequency with which they betook themselves north from Al-Andalus had increased tenfold since we had sacked their capital, Seville. I had no small part in that raid. My head would have made a fine prize for their captain. In fact, I had a sneaking suspicion that’s what he was after—not loot, not slaves, but my head.

“Strike fast and strike hard.” I pointed to the galley at the center. “The one flying the black banner and the smaller gold one underneath it, that’s their leader. Tell Ake that we all strike him first. We’ll take them down one by one.”

“Just like last time,” Bjarki said with a smile.

“Just like last time,” I replied.

Bjarki nodded and returned to face his men and barked orders. With the wind at our back, we hoisted our sails again to give us a speed advantage. The galleys loosened their formation to give room for their oars, giving us the room we needed to sail through. Bjarki led his ship into battle first. His men lifted their shields over their shoulders and steered themselves at full sail between two galleys. Their ship thundered as it dashed through the narrow space between the Moorish ships and broke dozens of their oars. A swarm of arrows clattered across Oak Raven’s deck. Halfway through the gap, the galley oars halted Oak Raven. Bjarki’s men dropped the sail and threw hooks at the ship in the center and pulled themselves close enough to board her.

“Shields up!” I commanded as Sail Horse charged at a gallop to do the same on the other side.

We crashed through oars, took two volleys of arrows, and hooked ourselves to the center ship as Bjarki had done. An arrow had found its way through our shields and pierced someone’s flesh, spattering the deck beside me with hot red blood. I followed the trail to see who had taken the hit. It led to my leg. I marveled at it, wondering why I had not felt its sting. Its iron head had passed clean through and struck far enough away from the groin that I did not fear bleeding out. So long as I left it in place, I could still fight.

I unsheathed my sword, brandished it over my head, and cried out, “With me!”

I leaped over the gunwale onto the enemy deck. They met me with spears, pole blades, and curved swords. My shield repelled them long enough for my men to leap aboard and force them back. Bjarki’s men had already cut their way through half the ship, swarming the Moorish fighting men like enraged bees. My men pressed forward and met our allies in the middle.

Where our ships had a single deck, galleys had two. They housed their fighting men on the top deck, and below, slaves powered their oars. Once we had cleared the top deck, I felt confident we had eliminated the threat. Slaves do not raid on their own accord. But they would make a good prize for us. We would be able to convince many to settle on the island—our salt farms needed the extra hands.

“Where is Ake?” Bjarki asked.

Ake’s ship had not kept pace with us. He had steered around in too broad a circle, and one of the galleys had maneuvered to aim its bronze ram at Riveted Serpent. How he had allowed it to happen, I am not certain. Before the Moors could catch him, his sail filled, and he dashed out of danger. At that moment, my leg started to ache.

“Damn,” I muttered.

“Damn is right,” Bjarki said. “Ake is too old and slow. I told you, Hasting. I told you.”

One of our men interrupted us, pointing in the opposite direction. “My king, look!”

The third galley rowed at full speed toward us—toward Oak Raven. Bjarki had no time at all to take his ship to safety. The galley’s ram split her in half, splintering her laps into a million shards. Though it had wrecked Oak Raven, the enemy ship’s momentum sent its ram crashing into the ship’s hull we had captured. The whole of it rocked to the side as the Moorish ram punched a hole in the lower deck, sending us all tumbling over toward the gunwale.

“Back to my ship!” I cried out.

Our men clawed and crawled across the rocking deck to reach Sail Horse. As we did, the Moors threw large clay jars at us, which broke and covered the galley’s deck and some of our men in an oily tincture. A flaming arrow flew overhead and struck where their jars had landed, setting the whole thing ablaze. The fire swallowed dozens of our men. The slaves below deck were doomed. I had seen this before when we had fought the Moors in Spain. They had called it Greek fire, and no amount of water would put it out.

We piled upon Sail Horse, filling her deck to the brim. My men took to the oars, and we cast off with haste, raising our sail to catch the wind. As we moved northward, we pulled as many of Bjarki’s men as possible out of the water. Those who could swim had tried to make for Sail Horse, and those who could not, drowned. The last man we pulled from the water was, to my relief, Bjarki’s son Bíldr.

“Sail north to lead them away from the village,” I commanded. “Ake will follow us.”

Bíldr took the steering paddle. He was a tall young man with long auburn hair, broad shoulders, and a square chin. He had proven himself a formidable, loyal warrior in our last battle with Moorish raiders. He had courage, grit, and strength, and he did not panic under pressure—all the qualities of a leader.

Sail Horse glided out of the fray ahead of the two galleys. We could not hope to beat them without regrouping with Ake’s ship. He had meandered off westward, chased by the Moorish galley that had almost cleaved his boat in half. We kept the wind at our back and forced the third galley to give chase. Galleys could not hope to keep pace with us. Once the men had settled in, I stood at the prow to address them. They needed me to say something. Morale was clearly low. Even I felt the pang of defeat, which I had not known in a long, long time.

As I opened my mouth to speak, I felt a sudden queasiness, and the world spun around me. My leg ached. Somewhere in the thick of battle, the arrow’s shaft had broken in half, causing me to bleed more than I had expected. The blue sky turned red, red blood turned blue, and for as much as I tried to hold onto the prow, I crumbled.

I did not awaken in Valhalla. Nor would I have wanted to. I instead awoke on a cot in Bjarki’s house. It was a modest single-chamber home with wattle and daub walls under a steep-pitched thatch roof that formed a spacious vault. My men had taken good care of me. They had pulled the remaining arrow shaft from my leg, washed the wound with seawater, and tied it off to stop the bleeding. Someone—I presumed Bjarki’s wife—had sewn the wound shut with horsehair and covered it in ointment. Where I might have expected to awaken in my own quarters, I instead lay in this empty room. It made me fearful of what had transpired after I had lost consciousness.

Not one to wait for fate to find me, I dragged myself to my feet and hobbled to the front door. Whoever had passed through it last had not latched it nor closed it all the way. It was careless. I pushed the door open to find the village crawling with warriors in long, red overcoats over light maille shirts, iron conical helmets with visored eyes, and some with leather shin guards and bracers. They were Danes.

“Hasting!” Bjarki approached me from around the side of his house. “Thank the gods, we were worried.”

“Why was I in your house?” I asked.

“Eh… I don’t think I’m the one who should answer that,” he said.

Between his words, a group of Danes lumbered past us with crates in their arms, telling jokes and laughing. They deposited their wares by the large firepit in the central courtyard of my village.

I rubbed my eyes and said, “What in god’s name is happening?”

“You won’t believe it.” Bjarki grinned.

He looked over his shoulder, drawing my gaze to a tall blond man in delicate blue and gold silk robes who was sauntering in our direction. I knew him. It was my best friend, Bjorn.

“Well met, Hasting!” Bjorn called out as he strolled up to us. He paused an arm’s length away from me and tilted his head, smiling. He pointed at my midsection, which had grown since the last time we’d seen each other. “Enjoying the excesses of retirement, I see!”

I grabbed at one of his sleeves of rich fabric and said, “You as well, I see.”

He laughed. “Mine comes off.”

I scowled and turned to Bjarki for support. Bjarki held up his hands and shrugged.

“You’re not that fat.” Bjorn patted me on the shoulder. “One good expedition and you’ll be back to your old self. Do you like the robes? I bought them in Gotland.” He twisted around to show us the back.

“Good to see you, old friend.” His pride in his new clothes made me laugh.

Bjorn took my hand and pulled me in for an embrace. The act put me off balance, and I winced in pain from putting too much weight on my injured leg.

“Apologies,” he said. “How is the pain?”

“Tolerable.”

“It’s a good thing we found you when we did.” He wiped off his robes as if his embrace with me had soiled them.

I looked at Bjarki, who nodded in agreement. When he realized I was still staring at him, he cleared his throat and said, “We sailed north as you had asked, and as luck would have it, we met Bjorn’s fleet sailing around the island’s north side. They chased off the Moorish pirates for us, and I invited them here.” He leaned in and feigned a whisper, “That is to say, he invited himself, and I agreed.”

“You have my thanks,” I said to Bjorn.

“None required.” Bjorn shook his head.

I gave him a half smile and asked, “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Bjorn sighed and placed his hands on his hips. “Can we talk business later? We haven’t seen each other in two years. At least introduce me to your wife.”

“Oh, yes, my wife,” I groaned.

Bjorn raised his eyebrows and said, “All is not well in Hasting’s kingdom?”

“She and I have a hard time seeing eye to eye.”

“Takes after her father, does she?” Bjorn asked.

I sighed and wiped my forehead with my sleeve. Turning toward my great hall, which Reifdis’ men had built with local maritime pine trees and the hull of a longship for the roof, I cracked my knuckles with apprehension. My home had not felt like a home in some time.

“She has rigid expectations of me that make my life difficult—duties, rituals, chores, and since I did not grow up among our kin, I have trouble keeping up,” I explained.

Bjorn looked me up and down, grinned, and crossed his arms. “She’s got you wrapped around her finger tighter than the Norns’ skeen, it sounds like.”

Bjarki laughed, which he swallowed as soon as I glared at him.

“I am no such thing,” I growled.

Bjorn raised his hands and said, “I meant no offense.”

“Follow me,” I said. “I shall welcome you to my home. You have arrived on a blessed day. My firstborn is due to arrive.”

“That was two days ago,” Bjarki interjected.
“What?” I was stunned into silence for a moment. “Is it…?”

“A boy,” Bjarki said.

“My firstborn,” I mumbled, half smiling to myself, “a son.”

“Congratulations, Hasting.” Bjorn grinned at me.

“Come,” I said. “Let me show you into my hall. This calls for a feast.”

Bjorn insisted on helping me walk, and together we traversed the village so that I might see my wife and newborn son. He marveled at what we had built. My hall stood at the center of two rows of houses that formed a semicircle against the edge of a forest of thin-trunked pines. The trees protected us from the wind, the tides, and hid us from passing ships.

“I thought to find you at the monastery on the eastern shore,” Bjorn said.

“That’s why I’m not there.”

The island’s monastery attracted Vikings as honey lures a bear. I had tried to make it my hall, but it had proven too difficult to defend. So I moved our people to a part of the island that marauding Danes, Celts, and Franks would not think to rive. Unfortunately, this side of the island put us in the path of less frequent but still deadly Moorish raiders. We had also moved the Celtic village that housed the salt farmers inland to avoid losing them to an opportunistic sea captain.

“And you built all this in two years?” Bjorn said with wonder.

“I had help.”

Bjorn paused at the front double doors of my hall, and he ran his hand across the muzzles of wolves wrought by our master woodworker Sig. He had carved a rich tapestry of beasts into the doors, including bears, foxes, stags, boars, ravens, eagles, and even some rats. I still wondered about the rats.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” I said.

“Masterful,” Bjorn voiced. “Like home.”

“Perhaps I can leave you to admire them while I check on my wife?” I suggested.

“Please,” Bjorn said, urging me to continue without him.

As I limped through the feasting area, past the ornately carved pillars Sig had made that held up our roof and around the dais partition in the back where we had walled off our bedchamber, I noticed several of Ake’s men keeping watch. They moved to meet me but did not stop me from pushing through. I lifted the latch and opened the door to find my wife sleeping on a cloud of pillows and furs, and her midwife humming a lullaby at her bedside. The midwife beckoned me to approach without breaking her song. She pulled back the corner of a clean white linen blanket to reveal the tiny head of a newborn baby. He looked like me.

Words cannot describe seeing one’s child for the first time. It must be lived. But I can say my life changed at that moment. I touched his soft little head, and I felt overwhelmed with want for that boy to have everything I never had—a loving mother, an honorable father, a doting family and community, and a chance to become a better man than me. And I had those things to give him, or so I thought. I had wealth, land, power, loyal followers, and a woman with a good name to raise him. Reifdis opened her eyes, and her eyes narrowed at seeing me.

“You’re alive,” she muttered.

“Not the first arrow I’ve taken to the leg,” I said.

She sighed, pressing two fingers against the bridge of her nose. “Is that friend of yours still here?”

“Bjorn?” I chuckled and said, “He found me. I will treat him to a feast tonight.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I must,” I insisted.

“You and Bjarki will end up drinking yourselves into a stupor again,” she groaned.

I scowled and clasped my hands. No enemy was near, and yet my heart was pounding. She had never approved that I’d started drinking again. “Is that what this is all about?”

“It’s embarrassing, Hasting. You talk so much about reputation, but how you’ve acted since Paris has made you a laughingstock in our village and among our allies.”

“You offend me,” I growled.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She looked away to hold them back. “Get out.”

I clenched both my fists and hovered over her for a moment with rage and frustration in my heart. Rather than press the issue, I returned to the feasting tables and found Bjorn examining the posts that held up our roof. Sig had also carved them full of animal figures, from the floor to the trusses, and painted several of them in earthy colors.

“I’ve always admired those who can carve such likenesses into wood,” Bjorn said.

“It’s a talent,” I muttered.

Bjorn shot me an inquisitive look. “So what did she say? Shall we celebrate?”

“She needs her rest,” I explained. “But you and I, old friend, shall make this a night to remember.”

Bjarki burst through the double doors, holding two horns filled to the brim with mead that I presumed Bjorn had brought us. Two of Ake’s men rushed to stop him from entering and blocked his path. Undeterred, he pushed through. He limped to us, spilling liquid gold onto the ashen floor, singing an old sailor’s song I had not heard before. Bjorn and I each had a horn thrust against our chest.

The door to the bedchamber lurched open, and Reifdis’ midwife gave a powerful shush. Bjarki recoiled. She was an Irish woman named Clíona, his third wife, and he feared her wrath more than the gods. She had coarse red hair like him, and while I would have loved to have seen the children they would have produced, the two had met and married too old.

“We should take this outside,” I said.

“Agreed,” Bjorn said.

I led my guest out of the hall and into the center of the village, where we had dug a large firepit for outdoor gatherings. We did not need a fire that day. The afternoon sun kept us warm, and the wind had not picked up yet. Since the autumn season, we had lived under constant rain and wind. What a relief that the sun had decided to show itself. Bjarki filled his own horn full of mead from a nearby barrel, and together we raised them above our heads, wished each other good health, and drank.

“Haven’t had good mead in months.” Bjarki smiled ear to ear. “All they have in these parts is red wine, and it doesn’t sit as well with my stomach.”

Bjarki had his men bring up barrels of wine for Bjorn’s men to drink—while he enjoyed their mead—and baskets of bread, cheeses, and salted herring for us to eat. Bjorn had invited two dozen of his most trusted followers from his camp, who gathered around us while a dozen or so of our warriors, all of them Bjarki’s men, joined us in lively banter. Conspicuously, all of Ake’s men and even Ake himself had returned to their homes.

“Ake isn’t in the mood for celebrating, I take it?” I asked Bjarki.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Bjarki said.

The two had never much liked one another. Bjarki had an insatiable thirst for all of life’s pleasures and enjoyed them when he could, whereas Ake believed above all in hard work and restraint. He was almost Christian in that way. Still, I wondered about Ake’s absence.

As the night wore on, Bjorn brought forth his skald—since we had none—who told stories of the deeds of his father, brothers, and me. My men had all heard the stories, but Bjorn’s had not. Most of them looked almost too young, freshly picked from their farms back home for a chance to make a name for themselves with the likes of the infamous Bjorn Ironsides and Hasting the Avenger. It felt good to be praised for my deeds for once. I had not heard them spoken in such a light in quite some time. Everything changed, however, when Bjorn’s skald recounted my meeting with King Charles to negotiate the sum we would accept to return the city of Paris to him.

“And so it was that Ragnar, son of Sigurd, asked for and received a payment of seven thousand pounds of silver,” the skald recounted.

I spat out my mead. “What?”

Bjarki recoiled and said, “Oh, shit.”

By that time, I had drunk more mead than I cared to remember. My shoulders swayed, my speech slurred, and my anger spilled forth like a frothing tide.

“It is the story of how Ragnar brokered the deal with the Franks that—” the skald attempted to say.

“Ragnar brokered nothing,” I roared.

“Please, brother, you needn’t be so angry,” Bjorn pleaded.

I drew my sword and charged at the skald, saying, “I will have your head for spreading such lies!”

Before I could reach him, something—or someone—tripped me. I fell forward, smashing my shoulder into the sandy ground beneath me. Bjarki leaped to my side to hold me down while Bjorn and his men snuck the skald out of sight. As I rolled on the ground, swinging my arms and kicking my legs, I continued to shout: “He stole my glory! He stole my reputation!”

Bjorn kneeled over me, helping Bjarki to hold me down, and said, “It was an honest mistake, Hasting. You’re right; my father did not take Paris. You did. I do not know why the skald thought otherwise.”

“You heard him, Hasting. It was a mistake,” Bjarki repeated.

Despite their reassurance, my anger continued to boil over, propelled by years of resentment and jealousy over what had happened in the wake of our conquering of Paris.

I pounded the ground and tried to break free of their hold, but eventually I tired and calmed down. Bjarki and Bjorn sat me up, keeping close to me in case I had another outburst. As I wiped the sand off my face, my eyes met with an unfortunate sight. Reifdis had heard the commotion and come out of our hall with Ake and several warriors beside her to investigate. Her nose wrinkled over flared nostrils, and her lip curled into a snarl of disgust.

“I asked you not to drink tonight,” she said in a muted tone.

“You asked that I not drink too much,” I said, pointing at the air with my forefinger.

“And here you are.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I can hear it in your voice. You are drunk! And look around you. Have you no shame? Some honorable warrior you are, rolling your drunken face in the sand. I’m embarrassed. Not just for you. For me. For our son. For those who follow us. You are a níð, and you have no honor,” she said.

When she said the word níð, several men gasped. It was a term I did not know well, but I knew that being called one was serious. The last person I had known who had been called by that name had been exiled by his kin. My heart pounded. In an instant, the fog of mead cleared. With Bjarki’s help, I regained my feet.

“How dare you accuse me of such a thing,” I growled. “I am Hasting, slayer of Hagar, Ragnar, and Renaud, conqueror of Nantes, Seville, and Paris, scourge of the Somme and Loire, and for once, I command you to give me the respect and loyalty my reputation affords.”

I took two steps toward her, which triggered Ake and his men to draw and brandish their weapons. Bjorn and Bjarki stepped in front of me, drawing their own weapons.

“Let’s be reasonable here,” Bjorn said. “We did not come here to fight anyone.”

“Our quarrel is not with you, Bjorn Ironsides,” Ake said.

“A quarrel with Hasting is a quarrel with me. He has my oath,” Bjorn said.

“Stop it, all of you.” I shoved my way through the throng and faced my wife. “So what is this, then? Hm? Were you planning to kill me?”

Reifdis crossed her arms and said, “No. I am here to banish you. You have proved yourself a níð, and I am now exercising my right to divorce you.”

I let out a full-bellied laugh. “You have no right,” I said.

“She does, and she will,” an ominous, raspy woman said, cutting through the rest.

It was Oddlaug. She was our village’s völva, or seeress, whom Reifdis had brought as part of her household when we married. Reifdis relied on Oddlaug to communicate with the gods and divine their will. I did not believe in her powers at first. I’d had too much of a Christian education during my time with the Celts to accept such superstitions, but Oddlaug had proven on several occasions to have the gift of foresight. She had won me over, although I still regarded her craft with suspicion.

Oddlaug stepped forward from behind Ake’s men with a labored gait. She wore a long black cloak and carried a silver staff with a gnarled bulb on the tip. Her hooded eyes were painted black, with runes jutting across her cheeks, temples, and forehead, and she had let her long, straight black hair down, parted neatly in the middle, flowing over her shoulders and chest.

“A wife accuses her husband of níðing. Are there any who support her claim?” Oddlaug asked.

“I do,” Ake said. “As do all the men of her household.”

“Are there any who protest?” Oddlaug asked.

“I am sure there are,” I said with a smirk. When no one answered, I crossed my arms and turned around. “Bjorn? Bjarki?”

“I’m sorry, friend, but it’s not my place. This is not my house,” Bjorn said.

“Bjarki?” I asked.

Bjarki lowered his head. His wife was standing behind Reifdis and eyeing him. He shook his head and said, “I am sorry, my king. I will die to defend you in battle, but I fear my wife will cut off my balls if I—”

“As I thought, you coward,” Bjarki’s wife interjected with a shrill, venomous voice. “Not even enough of a spine to back your king. You are as much a nið as him. I invoke my right to divorce you, too!”

I returned to Reifdis and asked her, “Why are you doing this?”

“For our son. He deserves better,” she said.

“Reifdis, daughter of Thorgisl, you are now granted your divorce and shall retain the keys to the household,” Oddlaug said. “Hasting, you are, as a result of this, commanded by the queen of this land to leave and never to return.”

Stunned by the proclamation, I sat in the sand and wrapped my arms around my knees. Reifdis tossed her golden wedding ring at me and turned her back on me, returning to our hall with her men and shutting the doors behind her with a resounding thud. Bjorn meanwhile ordered his men to return to their camp and wait for him. Soon, it was just me and Bjarki and Bjorn sitting around the firepit in the fading light of evening. Bjarki handed me a hunk of bread and urged me to eat it. They both sat next to me in silence.

“How are you taking it?” Bjorn finally asked after a long while.

I was paralyzed with anger. Never in my life had I suffered such an insult. The beast in my heart raged. “I’ll show her. I’ll show them all. They want to give Ragnar credit for Paris? Fine. She wants to kick me out? Fine. Now, I am free to do what I want. And I want to do something so unexpected and incredible that they will rue the day they wronged me.”

“Of course, revenge,” Bjorn sighed.

“Yes, revenge! Did you not see what just happened? I am shamed beyond belief. I should march in there and kill every last one of them right now.”

“Hasting, be reasonable,” Bjarki said.

“I am being reasonable. I am saving their lives by holding myself back.”

I paused, my anger still thick in the air. But as the silence stretched out between us, I fell to thinking about what I would do next. How might I earn back the reputation and honor that had been stolen from me? When I finished chewing my piece of bread, I turned to Bjorn and touched his shoulder.

“My friend, I must apologize. I still have not asked you why you came all this way.”

Bjorn smiled and said, “I am here on a trade mission.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Your salt. I am forming a trade expedition with a new partner named Rurik in the east to Miklagard, and we need salt for the journey up the freshwater rivers.”

“Rurik?” I said with a chuckle. “Isn’t he busy in Frisia fighting off other Vikings?”

“Not that Rurik, another one,” Bjorn said. “This one is a Rus.”

“Hm. A common name, then,” I said.

“It is. There’s another one in Zealand, too. He’s insufferable, and I would not wish meeting him on my worst enemy,” Bjorn said, smiling.

“Well, if you’ve come to trade, it is not I that you will need to speak with, but my wife.”

“Indeed,” Bjorn said.

“You have my blessing to do so.” I laughed. “You came all this way.”

“Thank you,” he said.

I paused for a moment, and then asked, “What is this Miklagard?”

“It’s a city on the other side of the known world ruled by a people who call themselves the Greeks,” Bjorn explained.

“Tell me more about it,” I urged him. “Have you been there?”

“I have. It’s spectacular, really. Thick and towering walls, two or three times larger than Paris, and rows of them, and domed churches as tall as mountains,” he said.

“Sounds wealthy,” I said.

“Riches beyond measure… It is considered the largest and wealthiest city in all the world. Why are you grinning at me?”

“I never took you for a simple merchant,” I said.

“Damn it, Hasting, I know what you’re thinking,” Bjarki blurted out.

“What’s he thinking?” Bjorn asked.

“He’s going to ask you to help him conquer it,” Bjarki said.

“Oh, no, impossible,” Bjorn said. “It would take a fleet of at least one thousand ships, and even then, getting them there… it’s too far.”

“We’ll find a way,” I said. “My name still carries weight in the North. When men hear that I am planning to take a fleet to Miklagard, they will flock to me as they flocked to me to take Paris.”

“I do not doubt they would, but hear me out, Hasting. Miklagard is impregnable,” Bjorn said.

“That’s what they said about Nantes and Paris. Bjorn, my friend, my brother, this is it. This is what I need to restore my reputation. Will you help me? Will you sail with me once more—to victory?”

Bjorn stood up and helped me to my feet, saying, “My oath to you remains unchanged. If you ask me to do this with you, I will.”

“Then let us commit here and now to gather the greatest fleet our people have ever known, and to take it to Miklagard—to glory!”

“Yes, to glory!” Bjarki echoed.

“There’s one issue, and that is my partner Rurik. He will need to be convinced,” Bjorn said.

“We will convince him together. Bjorn, you said you needed the salt. Tomorrow, take as much as you can and return east. I will sail to spread the word and recruit and join you there. Where are you launching from?”

“It is called Grobina.”

“I know where that is,” Bjarki said.

Bjorn laughed. “You’re full of surprises.”

“I can count on you to follow me, then, Bjarki?” I asked.

“Yes, my king,” he said. “To the edge of Miðgard.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “I am glad you are with me. Gather up the men who wish to join us—I am sure there are a number of them—and prepare Sail Horse. We leave tomorrow at first light.”

“Where are you going?” Bjarki shouted as I hurried away from them.

“There’s someone I need to speak with before we leave.”

I ventured into the forest behind the village along a beaten path to a hut nestled in a thick grove of blackberry and raspberry bushes whose seeds Oddlaug had sewn when she first arrived. She must have heard my footsteps, for she emerged from her hut to greet me the moment I stepped foot in her clearing. She wore a smile under a sunken brow. The way she carried herself made her seem old, but she had a healthy body, if not shapely, and few wrinkles on her face. Had she not disfigured herself with tattoos, I might have found her beautiful.

“A rotten thing you did to me back there,” I said.

“A necessity,” she retorted. “Reifdis left you a long time ago. It took seeing her son for the first time to realize it.”

“It doesn’t seem fair that she can simply cast me out. I would have made a good father,” I said.

“Would you?” she asked, amusement tugging at her lip.

“I would.”

She approached me with leering eyes, and one of her hands found its way to my groin as she pressed herself against me. Her lips hovered over my ear as she said, “Is that what you were thinking when you lay with me while your wife was pregnant?”

I shoved her away and took two steps back. Oddlaug circled me, and I matched her, keeping my distance. She held up the skirt of her dress and cloak above the dirt.

“You seduced me,” I said.

“You were begging to be seduced,” she said in a sensual whisper.

“You took advantage of my weakness,” I insisted.

“You offered your weakness to me on a platter, begging me to have a taste. Your hunger, your drive, bound by the shackles of marriage, and you could not help but unleash the conqueror within, if only for a moment. Do not blame me for your troubles—it was all your doing.”

“But the divorce was your doing,” I spat. “You turned them against me.”

“You did that yourself. Reifdis sought me out to affirm her right to a divorce. She decided it all on her own.”

“What games are you playing? Did you want me for yourself all along?”

Oddlaug cackled and said, “You think so highly of yourself. Of course you would think this was all to seduce you once more. I have no such desire. You repulse me.”

I put my hands on my hips and exclaimed, “Repulse?” We both stopped in our tracks, staring each other down, eye to eye. I wanted to lash out in anger, but I instead bit my tongue. “I did not come here for this.”

“No, you want me to cast the runes for you, don’t you?”

I chuckled and replied, “Clearly.”

“I already did,” she said.

“And?”

“I know you have doubted my abilities, so I will spare you all I have seen. What I will tell you is you are about to embark on a long, long journey, Hasting. The gods have much in store for you.”

“I set sail at first light,” I said, scowling.

“Then events that cannot be undone have been set into motion. What I have for you is this warning: beware not to overstep your bounds, for the gods are unforgiving to mortals who reach too high.”

“I have heard this before.”

Oddlaug took my hand. As she held it in hers and ran her fingers along the lines of my palms, she uttered words I did not understand. She had a convincing way about her.

“Yes, yes. Your fate is an interesting one,” she muttered. “Stay here.”

She returned to her hut and rummaged about while I waited outside. She made odd sounds when she thought she had found something and even odder ones when she realized she had not. Finally, she reemerged, holding a silver ring fashioned in the likeness of a wolf’s head. She held it up to the last glimmers of daylight.

“You confided in me once that the wolf Fenrir haunts your dreams. You have thought yourself hunted by him, tormented, even,” she said.

“He came to me when I was a boy and has followed me since,” I said. “He has been a burden on me.”

I’d had a vision of the Great Wolf when I was a boy. A storm overtook our ship, and I was thrown overboard. Drowning beneath the surface of the waves, I saw the wolf stalking our ship—stalking me. One of our crew managed to pull me back onboard, and when I told him what I had seen, he said that I had been cursed. The vision followed me and reappeared in my dreams at the most critical times of my life. It was an untamable beast that had driven me to fell deeds. I had confided the visions in Oddlaug, who assured me their purpose would soon be revealed.

“I do not see him as you do,” Oddlaug continued. “It is foretold that he will devour the Allfather, and nothing can stop him. He is the relentlessness of fate embodied, the harbinger of destiny, which none of us can escape. To resist the wolf, as you have, is to resist fate. And resisting fate has made you fearful, selfish, and wicked. The gods do not accept you in that form. They will test you until you have learned to be courageous, humble, honorable… and loving.”

I snarled, “Selfish and wicked?”

“I made this ring for you. The wolf is not a curse. He is a gift. He reminds you that struggling against your fate is like rowing against a fierce wind. When you have learned this lesson, you will find your way to the home you were meant to have.”

I took the ring and put it on the last finger of my left hand. Oddlaug caressed my face before slinking back into her hut. Her words gave me a fear I had not felt in many years. I shrugged it off, yet it lingered in my belly as I returned to the village.

Bjarki met me on his way back from the beach.

“What did she say?” he asked.

“She gave me this.” I showed him the ring.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Völvas.” He laughed. “Just when you think you have life figured out, they swoop in like a seagull and shit all over it.”

And shit all over it, she had. We prepared Sail Horse to launch the following morning, filling her with supplies and ensuring she had no defects that might hinder our voyage. Volunteers started to appear from the village and beyond, having heard Bjarki’s call for men to join me.

As we packed crates into the ship together, Bjarki asked, “Where to first on this mad journey to Miklagard?”

“You might think it odd, but first, I thought we’d pay Salomon a visit,” I said.

“Salomon? What for?” Bjarki asked.

“Reifdis may have kicked me out, but she still has my son. I want to let him know what’s happened and make certain he upholds the legitimacy of the land charter.”

“Makes sense,” Bjarki said.

“After that, we’ll sail north and begin recruiting, starting with Magnus,” I said.

“And let fate guide our path,” Bjarki said.

Once we had her loaded, we settled in with a makeshift tent on the ship’s deck, where we planned to sleep. Without Reifdis to scold me, I spent the first hours of darkness drinking with Bjarki until I fell asleep. As I drifted off into the nothingness of a dreamless, drunken slumber, I stewed over what had transpired that day, and I resolved to myself that I would conquer Miklagard and restore my name to its rightful place as the most famous Viking of them all. I even chuckled out loud at the thought of returning to my island with all the riches of the Great City… and rub it in Reifdis’ face.

The following morning, with a pounding head and ache in my heart, I bid farewell to Bjorn, promising to meet him at Grobina before the winter, and we set sail.