The Lords of the Wind, Chapters 1-4

Introduction

Welcome to the world of The Lords of the Wind, the first novel in The Saga of Hasting the Avenger series, where history and legend converge to tell the story of one of the most cunning Viking chieftains, Hasting. Set against the backdrop of 9th-century Europe, this epic tale follows Hasting’s rise to power, his adventures across the seas, and the battles that define his legacy.

This novel explores the fierce spirit of the Viking Age and delves into the complex motivations behind one man's relentless pursuit of fame, fortune, and honor.

I’m sharing an exclusive four-chapter excerpt on my website as a gift to my readers. These chapters will introduce you to Hasting's world, his motivations, and his encounters with some of the most significant challenges of his early career. I believe this glimpse into his journey will pull you into the story and the era just as much as it captured me when writing it.

If you are caught up in Hasting’s world, I encourage you to dive deeper and purchase the entire novel on Amazon. Your support brings more of these stories to life and helps the book climb the rankings so it can reach even more readers.

So, without further ado, I invite you to begin The Lords of the Wind. Let the adventure begin!

Copyright information:

Copyright © 2019 by Christopher Jonathan Adrien

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Edition

Originally published in the United States in 2019 by Runestone Books

ISBN: 9781078386166

1: Reputation is Everything

They call me the Scourge of the Somme and Loire. I like the name. Christian priests gave it to me—those who believe the Devil sent me to punish them for their sins. The name implies I am fearsome, and fear compels respect. It is essential for a man such as I to command fear from my enemies; it weakens their resolve. Much of a Viking’s life is an illusion, and a Viking’s illusion is his reputation. There is truth to my name—that I am a scourge, a bane, an affliction on the lands I rove—but a name is given. A reputation is earned. I have spent a lifetime crafting my reputation, as blacksmiths labor to forge the perfect blade. As the gods have us know them through their deeds, so shall I be known and remembered for mine, forever.

I am Hasting. I was born a Dane, but I have spent little time in the land of my birth. My father, as I remember him, was a wealthy chieftain named Ragnar. We lived in a great hall made of stone and earth, with pillars that reached for the sky and totems of the gods Freyr and Freyja that stood at the door to watch over our family. The hall looked over our land to the ocean in the East and the plains of Jutland in the West, and we watched many sunsets there. My father spent a great deal of time with me, to teach me the ways of my people and the lessons a boy needs to grow into an honorable man. I wanted to be like my father. He was a force of nature. Most of his lessons I have forgotten now, except one. It burned into my memory the moment he said it, and I remember the words clearly.

“One day, I will die, and your mother will die, and your brothers and sisters will die, and you, my son, will die,” he said to me. “What does not die is the reputation a man leaves behind at his death.”

I wish I remembered more of my father, but he was slain by another Dane for his wealth when I was at an age few men remember. It is a strange thing, memory, and fickle, especially for a boy as young as I was that day. My mother and sisters and brothers were sold into slavery, split apart as a family, never to see one another again. I cannot say where they sent my family, but I boarded a longship whose destination determined the rest of my life. As a slave, I was stuffed into a corner of the ship, bound and gagged, and given drink to force me to sleep; this is all I remember, mere glimpses of a harrowing voyage. I believe my mind has forced me to forget this time as a means to heal. All this because another man coveted my father’s wealth. It was then I learned the wickedness of men—all men—and the savagery that dwells in the hearts of our race.

Mine is not a story of revenge. No, the man who killed my father was himself slain before I grew my first beard, or so I heard in my travels. Such is the lot of a Dane. Blood feuds fuel constant fighting that robs families of their kin, of their wealth. And, in my view, this has prevented the Danes from rising as rivals to the Franks. Knowing this, I decided early on to avoid entangling myself in the fray of the politics of the North.

Mine is a story of a boy who was a slave, who became a warlord, and who helped topple an empire. This is the story of how I betook myself a-Viking, took what I desired by my own two hands, and how I came to earn the reputation of Scourge of the Somme and Loire.

My story begins when my captors sold me to a man named Hagar. He lived on a far-away island called Ireland, where the trees and grass and shrubs are the greenest of any green any man has ever seen. Rain pours over the countryside in near perpetuity. At first, I believed the rain would pass, which it did once or twice in the summer when I lived there, but never for long. It is how I remember it, at least, and I have since met an Irishman or two who have laughed with me for describing their homeland in such a manner.

The ship that carried me arrived at Hagar’s longphort on a grey afternoon. A small party of warriors interrogated the captain before allowing the vessel to tie off. The longphort was a lengthy, open pier extending out from a thatch-roofed dock that housed Hagar’s ships. The poles holding the dock together had barnacles and mussels growing on them up to where the water reached high tide. We had arrived at low tide, so the crew moored the ship as close to the dock as they could, roped it to the poles, and jumped into the shallows below. They sloshed their way through the knee-deep muddy water, one of them with me thrown over his shoulder, all the way to the rocky shoreline.

Hagar’s village was also a fort. He had erected a wooden wall the height of three men that surrounded the longhouses, with two open-air towers to keep watch over the surrounding land. To the east, the towers looked over the coast, the ocean, and the horizon, and in the west, they overlooked a thick, lush, untouched wilderness of oak, aspen, and ash. Farmland surrounded the walls of the fort, split into uneven plots by loose wattle fencing. Slaves labored from dawn until dusk during the harvest. Within the fort, there were five longhouses, each built in a different direction to form a semi-circle that faced north. The longhouse walls were made of turf cut into thick, sturdy pieces, stacked at breast height beneath a low thatched roof. The largest of these, Hagar’s hall, is where my captors took me on the first day. I cannot remember what was said, nor the names of the men who brought me to that place, but I remember what they sold to Hagar. They had not merely carried slaves across the sea, but also many of my family’s belongings, including my father’s sword. When Hagar girded it, I vowed that I would one day take it back from him.

For the first few years I lived in Ireland, I saw little of the outdoors. All of Hagar’s slaves lived in the same longhouse on the easternmost edge of the village. Most of them ate and slept there, and not much else. During the day, the older slaves left the longhouse to toil wherever their masters bade them. Many children lived in the slave house, and many of them were even younger than I. While the grownups worked, the children remained confined to a room on the far side of the chamber, watched over by an Irish woman named Eanáir with long black hair and deep green eyes. She was a wretched soul who, in the presence of others, appeared loving and nurturing, but in their absence abused and neglected the children. She spent her days away from the longhouse and left the children to cry in our cribs.

My crib, worn by years of use and full of splinters, and which felt more akin to a cage, sat in a dark corner where the only light shone through a vent in the roof where smoke from the fire could escape. In one of my earliest dreams, Odin appeared to me in that crib and granted me the power to make myself as light as a feather. I escaped my prison and jumped into the fire, and the smoke carried me up through the hole in the roof to freedom. The dream gave me hope that someday, perhaps, the gods might spare me this suffering. It was this hope, I believe, that allowed me to endure my early captivity.

For how long I lived like an animal in a cage, I cannot say. I remember little of what happened under Eanáir’s supervision. The lost memories I blame on a potion she gave us that made us sleep for most of the day. She mixed it into our food, and so the choice was to eat and sleep or starve. At times, she screamed at some of the older children, myself included, for no apparent reason, but mostly she left us alone, with little food during the day, and with nothing to clean the infants who soiled themselves.

The children and babies wallowed in their excrement for days at a time. One boy fell ill from the filth and died, but Eanáir did not notice when she returned to check on us. His body rotted for most of the afternoon before another slave returning from the fields smelled him and found him in his crib. No one so much as raised an eyebrow, for the boy did not belong to anyone. He was like me, a child bought by Hagar from the slave trade, an exile with no loved ones to care for or about him. When I saw them carry his body from the longhouse, I feared I might soon meet a similar fate.

Eanáir made sure to take proper care of the other slaves’ children to avoid problems with them. She did the minimum to keep them clean for when their parents returned from their day’s labor. Those children spent time in the main chamber in the evening and at night, a social environment crucial to the upbringing of a child. The children with no parents remained in the room, alone, occasionally visited by Eanáir who gave us enough nourishment to survive, mixed with the sleeping potion, and not much more.

To muffle our cries to the outside world, she padded the walls of the room with thick blankets sewn together and filled with straw. To prevent the older children from escaping, which I attempted once or twice when I had my wits about me, she locked the door to the room from the outside—and she never forgot to lock that damned door. Nights in the room were quiet and dark. If I woke, I saw nothing but blackness and heard the sound of wind or rain falling against the thatch. I experienced my first terrors in that darkness. Eventually, I stopped crying. I understood its futility and accepted that no one would ever come to save me.

One day, it all changed. Eanáir entered the room with Hagar behind her and pointed to me in my corner. It was the first time I had seen him enter the slaves’ longhouse. He approached my crib and looked at me with sunken, tired eyes. He reached down, grabbed me by the nape, and lifted me from the ground. His face scrunched at the smell of me, so much so that he pinched his nose with his other hand and turned his head away.

“He’s filthy… and sickly,” Hagar said, his voice muffled by his hand.

“It is his constitution, my lord,” Eanáir said. “I have cared well for him.”

“I’ve heard rumors,” Hagar said. He released my neck from his grip. “It seems they are true.”

Eanáir gulped. “Rumors?”

He turned to face her, his eyes focused and menacing. “The others say you do not care for these children as you should. Two have died this year alone from illness. That is two too many.”

“Children die, my lord, you know this,” Eanáir pleaded. “Few will live through their childhood.”

Hagar’s brow sunk low over his eyes in anger. “Lies,” he said. “I have heard them too often. And shame on me for believing them for so long! I did not buy these children to have them die in their cribs. I need them to grow strong to work in the fields.”

“And several will,” Eanáir said as she passed trembling fingers through her long black hair.

Hagar looked around at the other children who were all in a similar or worse condition than I. “I trusted you to care for these children. You have betrayed my trust.” He rolled up the sleeves of his tunic to reveal his thick, powerful forearms. “Ingrid!” he shouted.

A young woman with fiery red hair who wore a simple farm dress covered by a stained brown work apron scurried through the doorway. “Yes, my lord?” she said with her head lowered.

“Have these children fed and cleaned. And have Orm tear down this wall. There is no place for such a thing in a longhouse. Why was it built?”

“It was Eanáir who suggested we build it, so the children’s crying would not disturb the others at night,” Ingrid said.

“Who approved the construction?” Hagar asked.

Ingrid shrunk a little and said, “Orm.”

“That fool.” Hagar raised his voice to a near shout. “From today forward, if a child cries at night, one of the other slaves will have to care for it. As it is supposed to be!”

Hagar turned his gaze to me and said, “That one is old enough to start working. Take him to my hall and give him over to Gyda. Tell her what has happened here.” Hagar reached for the back of Eanáir’s head, clenched her hair at its thickest, and tugged on it with brute force. She screamed louder than I had ever heard a person scream. He dragged her by the scalp out the door and through the hall. “You are lucky I travel so much, or else I would have caught this a long time ago,” I heard him say.

We were saved. What I did not know then, but I soon learned, was that I had traded one egregious caretaker for another. I did not understand at that moment that the real monster was not Eanáir, but Hagar, even though Hagar had shown himself to care at least a little for the children he owned.

Ingrid called for other slave women to help her with the youngest children while she walked with me to Hagar’s hall. There, we were greeted by a tall woman with wide hips, broad shoulders, and black hair cut short above the ear.

“I am Gyda,” she said. “Who are you?”

“Hasting,” I stammered.

“How old are you, Hasting?” she asked with a firm tone and a piercing gaze.

“I… do not know.” I struggled to find the words to speak, for I had not spoken in a long time.

Gyda knelt to look me in the eye. “Where are you from?”

“I am a Dane,” I said.

“You’re the jarl’s son,” she said. “I remember when Hagar bought you.”

“I’m hungry.” I spoke the truth; I had not eaten for at least a day. The weather had turned foul, and a light drizzle and cold ocean breeze swept over the village. My legs trembled like a leaf in the wind.

“Take him to the washroom,” Gyda said to Ingrid. “You will eat when you are clean. From now on you are mine, and you will do as I say. That is your job, do you understand?”

I nodded. Ingrid took my hand, and we walked across the village to a small shack built against the wooden wall. It had a sloped roof made of wooden planks coated in tar and a short chimney that spewed white smoke. She helped me undress and stood me in front of the door. When she unlatched it, a thick billow of steam broke free and floated toward the clouds. I entered the shack to find two other women naked and scrubbing themselves with damp cloths.

In the center of the room was a large iron bowl filled with glowing rocks. The women paused as I entered the room with Ingrid who, when I looked back at her, had undressed without my noticing. I had never seen a woman without her clothes, and her nakedness stirred feelings within me. If I had to name those feelings today, I would have to describe them as akin to lust. Boys of that age do not feel the same passions as grown men, but they are not immune to arousal.

Ingrid nudged me forward and sat me on a bench along the side of the steam house. She reached for a bucket of water below the iron bowl and poured it over the rocks. They sizzled and filled the room with more dense steam. Droplets of water beaded on my skin, and Ingrid took a cloth and scrubbed me down with repeated, aggressive strokes. By the time she had finished, my skin had turned bright red like a freshly cut beet.

With clean clothes on my back, Ingrid returned me to Gyda who took me under her charge and led me into Hagar’s hall where she sat me on one of the mead-benches. The main chamber was much larger than the slaves’ longhouse—its roof stood higher above the ground, it was longer, and it had a grand entrance with a massive double door that opened to reveal an enormous central fire pit.

From the fire pit, which had a large pot flanked by two thick iron rods hanging above it, Gyda poured me a bowl of pottage. I stirred it around for a moment and slurped down a few mouthfuls when I felt it was not too hot. I remember how good it tasted, though I knew it was not good pottage; it had a bland mixture of cabbage, ham, onions and leeks, and some herbs for flavor. Most would not consider it a feast, but compared with what Eanáir had fed me until that day, it was delicious.

As I sat eating my first real meal in far too long, Hagar and his men entered the hall with Eanáir in tow. Some freedmen and women also gathered in the chamber and sat beside me at the mead-benches. To my surprise, they said nothing about my presence, nor did any of them acknowledge my existence. Hagar made Eanáir kneel before his high chair, and he stood over her in an odd display of dominance. With his hands on his hips, he strutted side to side and cleared his throat.

“Thank you for convening on such short notice,” he said to the men and women in his hall. “I have called for a meeting to accuse this woman. She has mistreated my property, a grievous crime by our laws. She is Sven’s slave, so I ask permission from Sven to punish her. Sven, you will be compensated for the loss.”

A slender man with a narrow face, a braided black beard, and long, matted hair stood up and said, “You have my permission, lord. The slave has been trouble to my house for some time.”

Hagar shot his audience a malicious smile. “The abuse of children is among the worst of all misdeeds in the eyes of the gods.” He tugged hard on Eanáir’s hair to pull back her head and face her eyes to the ceiling. He drew a long hunting knife from his belt and pressed it against her exposed throat. “Hake, what do the gods say about punishments befitting a slave such as this?”

Gyda leaned close and whispered in my ear. “Hake is our skald. He knows the deeds of the gods, and from them he interprets their will.”

Across the hall, at the opposite mead-bench, another man stood. Built like an ox, he had a barrel chest, thick arms, and sturdy legs. He wore his hair short and his beard in a forked braid. He placed his hands on his hips and said, “Odin once brought the wolf Fenrir to Asgard, in the hopes that they might tame him. No matter what the Aesir did, the wolf grew more dangerous. They could not change his nature. So, too, will we not change this Irish slave’s nature.”

“Remind me what the gods did to the wolf?” Hagar said.

“They tied him to a stone slab with chains that grew tighter the more he struggled,” Hake said.

Hagar lifted his blade from Eanáir’s throat. “Fetch me chains,” he said.

He picked Eanáir up off the floor and threw her at some of his followers who caught her and bound her with rope. They left the hall through the double doors, and as all the townspeople present stood and followed, Gyda placed her hand on my chest to prevent me from moving. She looked down at me with troubled eyes. “Do you wish to see her punishment? It will not be pleasant. It will frighten you.”

Without a hint of hesitation, I said, “Yes.”

Gyda took my bowl and placed it behind her on the mead-bench. With my hand in hers, she led me through the doors to the village’s central courtyard. I had a sinking feeling I could not shake, even though I had not understood what Hake had meant by his story. I knew Eanáir would suffer, and I believed she deserved it, yet I felt hesitant to see the outcome, almost frightened, as if the possibility still existed that she might be released and allowed to harm others.

This same feeling of dread, of the unknown, of knowing that events more often than not did not unfold in my favor, has haunted me at pivotal moments in my life. Here I walked for the first time with this lurking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as though I had done wrong. I suppose this is something many victims feel—individual powerlessness in the face of evil, a feeling of guilt and shame as if I had let it all happen, that it was I who should have prevented myself from falling victim to another.

Gyda and I walked from the village to the longphort where Hagar examined large rocks along the coastline toward the south. Hagar’s hair swayed in a blustering wind that had picked up from the south, and it blew into his eyes and his mouth; none of it appeared to bother him. I had not seen the coastline since my arrival, and I marveled at its majesty in the face of thundering waves that broke white along jagged rocks.

At high tide, the ocean’s grandeur and power expressed itself in a terrible struggle between land and sea, spurred by a fierce, unrelenting wind whose deafening whoosh broke at the crashing of waves against rock. Seabirds floated against the current of the wind and surveyed the ocean’s bounty below. They dove like spears into the water and reemerged with fish squirming in their beaks. The marvelous creatures had mastered the wind in all its fury to make themselves untouchable predators. Their sudden dives, I imagined, must have inflicted unspeakable terror on their prey. How powerful might men be if they could harness this power and leap on their enemy with such precision, lethality, and surprise?

My imagination ran wild but broke at the sound of clanking chains nearby. Hagar clamped Eanáir’s wrists in irons and tied her to a waist-high rock with three tight loops. The men laughed into the wind as they left her there to suffer in the cold rain. To my utter relief, this was the extent of her punishment. They drew no blood, nor abused her in any fashion.

Hagar and his men left her there to linger where none would give her the honor of witnessing her death. A fortnight later, while on an errand for Gyda, I returned to see what had become of that woman. I do not have the words to describe what I saw. It was so terrible that I have put it out of my mind, and I have told no one since about what lay chained to that rock.

For two years I lived under Hagar’s roof. Not once did he bother to learn my name; he called me boy. I hated him. I loathed him. At night I dreamt of all the ways I could kill him. He was a drunk, and a violent one too. Each day, he sat on a large oaken chair mounted on a raised dais on the far end of his hall so that he could sit above his subjects. He thought of himself as a king, and few ever challenged him. We were in a land far removed from the society whence we all came. In Jutland, at least, the law reigned supreme, and all had to obey it or else face exile or death.

In my heart I knew, at least, that the man who killed my father should have—must have—answered to the law of the Danes. In Ireland, there was no law except Hagar’s. He took slave girls at his pleasure and beat those who dared challenge him until their blood soaked the ash-covered ground.

Hagar was a complicated man. Although he often acted with arrant depravity, particularly when he drank, he also abided by a strict code of honor that weighed on his decisions and actions with the other free men. He never refused a challenge, and he never allowed himself a distinct advantage over an opponent in a fight. His legitimacy as king hinged on his ability to strike down any man who wished to take his place. He also respected the village elders and showered them in gifts and praise. They had a say in the village assembly called the thing, where many of the crucial decisions about our community were made. With their support, he could sway the free men’s conclusions in his favor at every thing.

Hagar was not a Dane, but a Vestfaldingi, a Northman from the Oslo Fjord. His hair ran long below his shoulders and glimmered red in the firelight of his hall, and his beard twisted and turned in knots from his chin to his chest. Slave girls washed, groomed, and braided his beard each and every day. He reminded us all of his heritage often and expressed his hatred for the Danes, in particular those he claimed had expelled him from his homeland.

Some days he beat me for all to see, just to show them how much he hated the Danes. Each time, Gyda helped wash the blood from my nose and lips, then cleaned and dressed me so that I might continue my chores, lest I face Hagar’s wrath again. She scolded Hagar more than once about hitting me, but Hagar always had an answer. “It builds character… makes him stronger,” he said, more times than I could count.

Hagar often hosted visitors from other lands. They visited him to trade and, through his trade, he earned much wealth. He did not need to raid or fight for this wealth. The longphort’s location and its reputation attracted rovers from all over the world. His longphort repaired their ships for a price, and his men were, as he explained to his patrons, the best craftsmen and woodworkers in Midgard. Northmen were not alone in their trade with Hagar, either. The Irish bought many of the goods the Northmen brought to the longphort in exchange for Irish slaves. In this way, Hagar profited from every side and every kind of visitor, and his wealth grew.

Hagar had no sons or daughters. Many of us often wondered about this, since his appetite for young women seemed insatiable. He should have fathered many children over the years, and his lack of progeny, as he said himself once or twice during my time in his hall, made him vulnerable to challenges from his warriors.

To keep them happy, he had to prove that he could make them wealthy, or else lose his self-given title of king to another who could provide. Such was the life of a chieftain in Hagar’s position. He had one duty: to make and distribute wealth to his warriors.

It was this warrior culture, I later learned, that spurred much of the raiding and conquering that defined the lives of men who roved and fought, who left their home in search of wealth and fame and were called Vikings. Hagar had seen great success as a young man, and his village stood as a testament to his triumphs and how a man could make a life for himself if he dared to take it. I may have hated Hagar, but from a Viking’s perspective, he was exemplary.

There were other children in Hagar’s village apart from the slaves. They were the sons and daughters of the freemen. So long as I finished my chores, Hagar’s husmän Karl, a slender man with a long black braid on his chin and a thick scar across his face from his hairline to his nose bridge, let me play with the others.

A husmän was the chieftain’s deadliest warrior and closest confidant. Karl’s sons, Ole and Sven, visited Hagar’s hall every day, and we became close friends. They were wild boys and always up to trouble, and I loved them for it. It was they who earned me the scar on my face, although not on purpose. As I recall it, Ole had collected droppings from the pigpen, and he and his brother hatched a plan to have them drop on their older cousin, Inge, from a bucket tied above the doorway of their father’s longhouse. They loved to torment Inge; he was a cruel and wretched boy who harassed smaller children and beat them up for fun. In a scuffle between cousins, Inge nearly broke Sven’s arm and then convinced the parents that Ole had started the fight. Karl’s sons wanted revenge.

They prepared their trap and set a lure for Inge outside. Inge gravitated toward anything involving food—his favorite in particular: fresh rye bread. Karl’s wife had baked a large batch, and the smell of it filled their longhouse. Ole barely said the words and Inge darted across the village with his nose out in front of him. When the door opened, Sven tugged the rope that tipped the bucket of droppings and released its contents. It was not Inge who had opened the door for a taste of bread. It was Hagar.

I took the fall for the incident at Ole and Sven’s pleading. I did so because I knew Hagar, and I knew he would not let Karl’s boys off. It would have proven disastrous for the whole village to have the king and his husmän fighting over something as trivial as children’s mischief. As my punishment, Hagar struck me with the back of his hand, and the gem-encrusted gold ring on his middle finger, whether a gift from a trading partner or loot from a faraway monastery, cut into my cheek from nose to ear.

During my time as Hagar’s slave, I felt the burning desire in my heart to act, to escape, and to kill. I grew resentful, bitter, angry, and with every mistake, every small misstep, I faced even more biting wrath from my captor. These were the years I earned my deepest, most enduring scars, the ones we wear that none can see but ourselves. I wear the scar across my right cheek with pride today, for it is a symbol of my struggle, my survival, my indomitable hunger to make something of myself, to earn a name, and to be remembered.

My salvation was Gyda. She cared for me and helped me on many occasions to avoid facing Hagar’s bouts of rage. She made a place for me to sleep near her in the slaves’ quarter of Hagar’s longhouse, and she watched over me when I fell ill. Over time, we grew inseparable. Wherever she went, I followed, and she always arranged for my chores to coincide with hers in some way. She taught me what it meant to give and receive love and to feel the warm embrace of another human being, something I had missed during my captivity. I knew she felt guilty for what had happened to me under Eanáir’s supervision and for not discovering what was happening right under her nose.

After many long years of serving Hagar, the gods sent me my salvation. Whether indeed by the hands of the gods, or by pure luck, a ship arrived at the longphort, as so many others had done, carrying a man who changed the course of my life. On the night this particular ship arrived, Hagar had tasked me with serving mead. My responsibility was to ensure that the goblets of Hagar’s men and his guests remained full at all times. For each empty cup, Hagar promised, I would receive a strike from the back of his hand at night’s end.

The guests arrived, and from the clothes they wore I knew they were Vikings. They wore dark, thickly woven tunics with decorative trim, and their hair was short, as warriors often wore it, and their beards were well-groomed. Each man carried a heavy cloth sack over his shoulder, filled with what seemed at first to be water. They approached Hagar on his throne and threw their wares at his feet. One of the bags burst open as it hit the ground, and it covered Hagar’s dais in salt.

“Taste it,” one of the Vikings said.

Hagar leaned forward, swiped some salt from his foot, and pressed it against his tongue. He sat back in his chair with a smirk. With a click of his fingers, he summoned his servants to tend to his guests, seat them, feed them, and offer them drink. I scurried from my corner with a carafe and set about filling all the goblets with mead.

As I passed the leader of the Vikings, he looked at me with keen interest. He had blue eyes the color of a clear summer sky, sand-colored hair, and a bright red beard. At first, he gave me pause. I thought he was yet another one of those depraved men who preferred the company of boys to women. To my relief, he had no such intention. His nearest companion, a far rougher-looking man with thick, dark circles under his eyes, also examined me and whispered something in his ear.

“Where did you get it, Eilif?” Hagar asked of the salt.

The man who stared at me replied, “Frankland.”

“Imagine the wealth you could make with this,” Hagar said. “Men will pay a high price for salt of this quality.”

“I know,” Eilif said as he took a hearty gulp from his goblet. His voice was clear and confident. He wiped his beard and mustache with his sleeve and said, “In Jutland, it is worth its weight in silver. These three sacks are my gift to you for your hospitality and for repairing my ships in your longphort.”

Hagar raised his goblet to acknowledge his guests’ offering and drank his fill. As soon as I saw the bottom of his goblet rise above his chin, I knew he had begun his descent into a drunken stupor. For hours the men talked, sang, and drank, and I rushed from empty goblet to empty goblet until the firelight dwindled to a dull glimmer.

As the night drew to its conclusion, Hagar’s skald Hake took to the ashen floor and told a story. It was not a story about Hagar, which he had told throughout the night, but a tale of Odin, the king of the Aesir, our gods. I had heard many tales of the gods from Hake over the years, and his stories always made me think.

This story I had heard once before; he told of the wolf named Fenrir, a child of Loki and a menace to all of creation. Odin foresaw that the beast would grow so large that he would one day devour Yggdrasil itself, so the gods moved to capture him. The god Tyr sacrificed his arm to distract the wolf so his allies could defeat him and bind him for eternity. They tied the wolf in chains that tightened the more he grew, and he stopped growing. Odin knew the shackles that bound Fenrir would not last forever. A völva, or seeress, foresaw that the wolf would devour Odin at Ragnarok, the end times.

“And so,” Hake said, “the world of men will see the wolf again.” As I listened to his tale, my imagination took hold of me. Thoughts of the wolf filled my mind, and I feared him. Above all, I feared to one day see him.

Eilif’s men gathered along the walls of the hall with cots and blankets to settle in for the night, while Hagar slumped in his throne with a half-filled goblet hanging from his hand. His snores shook the floor like Thor’s thunder, yet no one seemed to mind.

As the men fell asleep, the other slaves entered the hall to help clean the tables. Gyda volunteered to clear the salt from Hagar’s feet. She swept the floor with the lightest touch and was careful not to bump her master for fear of awakening him. All seemed well until Hagar, for no reason at all, woke himself from his slumber with a loud snort and saw Gyda below him. He reached down, grasped her arm, and pulled her toward him. She knew what he wanted. Hagar was a voracious and lustful hound, and he leaned in and sniffed at her neck. He pulled her hair and groped her breasts through her dress. I had never seen him lust after a woman of Gyda’s age, and the sight of him assaulting a woman I had grown to love, the closest figure to a mother I had ever had in that wretched place, incited a deep, burning rage within me.

Without thinking, I charged the throne empty-handed and leaped toward Hagar and Gyda. She did not see me, for she had closed her eyes while tears streamed down her face. In the dim lighting, even Hagar did not see me at first, though he saw me soon enough.

I grasped the hilt of his sword, drew it with a mighty heave, and drove it toward his chest. It all happened so quickly, I thought I had done it. I thought I had succeeded in killing Hagar. But before the blade cut into his flesh, Hagar snatched the sword from my hands and kicked me back with great force. I flew from the throne onto my back in the dirt and ash below.

“I’ll kill you, boy!” Hagar screamed.

Gyda pulled at his beard and clothes to stop him, but the man was strong, and he pushed her aside with ease. He raised his sword and aimed it at me. Still dazed from my fall and with the wind knocked out of me, I lay motionless, a perfect target for a drunken warrior.

“Stop!” I heard a voice call out.

“Stay out of this, Eilif,” Hagar said with spittle spewing from his mouth. “What I do with my slaves is my business.”

“I will buy him.” Eilif emerged from the dark. “How much for the boy?”

“He’s not for sale,” Hagar said.

“Everything is for sale, old friend,” Eilif said.

“Why? Why buy the boy?” Hagar asked. “He’s worthless! Just now he tried to kill me with my own sword. A rebellious slave is better dead.”

“Name your price,” Eilif said.

Hagar lowered his sword. “You want him? He’s yours. I meant to rid myself of this little devil for months. He’s been nothing but trouble from the start. I should never have agreed to take him in the first place. He has too much of his father’s heart in him!”

In a fit of anger, Hagar stormed off behind his throne to his bedchamber. I recovered, and Eilif reached a hand out to help me to my feet. I gazed at him, in awe that he had dared to stand up to Hagar. He looked down at me with a kind smile no man had ever given me.

“Why did you save me?” I asked him.

He knelt and spoke with me eye to eye. “You see that man over there?” He pointed to the man who had sat beside him at the feast. “His name is Egill. He has a unique gift: he can commune with the realms beyond ours. And do you know what he said to me?”

“No,” I said. My eyes remained fixed on Egill.

“He says you have an extraordinary destiny.”

2: To Become a Viking

Only the bravest men betake themselves a-Viking. It is a dangerous profession, but a lucrative one for those who are successful. When Eilif bought my freedom, he recruited me as ship’s boy. He first taught me how to tie knots. I thought a Viking should first learn how to wield a sword or throw a spear. But a Viking, Eilif said, is nothing without the skill to sail his ship, and to sail his ship, he must know his knots.

Ours was a warship named Sail Horse of the Mountains of the Swans, or Sail Horse for short, and it was one of many kinds of boats sailed by those who roved. Sail Horse contained all manner of ropes, and each use required a different knot. I thought to find a life of excitement at sea, perhaps filled with unbridled adventure. That was how it was always described in Hagar’s hall. Instead, I found myself spending my first days aboard the longship fiddling with ropes to make one knot or another.

“A true Viking is a seafarer first and a warrior second,” Eilif said. “His strength is his ship, not his sword or his ax.”

I admired Eilif. He was strong-minded, intelligent, and he had exceptional skill in navigation. What I admired most about him was his ability to command the respect of his men. They obeyed him without question. When a new recruit stood against him in protest or defiance, it always ended badly for him. Eilif hardly had to lift a finger before his loyal followers put the challenger in his place. Seldom did he have to raise his voice. He could cut through men’s courage in a single glance. The men feared his wrath, but he did not have to threaten them with any violence to earn their loyalty. It was Eilif who taught me the power of respect in commanding fealty.

As ship’s boy, it was my duty to learn the craft of sailing, roping, and cleaning, and also cooking. My first night aboard Eilif’s longship, the second-in-command, Egill, taught me and the other ship’s boy how to make the foods needed for a long sea voyage.

For most of the day the men ate dried, salted fish, but at night they preferred fresh cuts of herring or mackerel with bread if we had any in the hold. On some days, when a favorable wind blew, we made a fire in a large iron pot suspended from a tripod that was bolted to the deck. The pot swayed with the ocean’s waves, so the coals did not spill out. From the same stand, we hung a smaller iron pot and dipped it into the flames. This was how we made our stews. As our days in open water passed, the ingredients to make the stews dwindled, leaving us with nothing but raw fish to eat until we reached land.

Egill was no ordinary Northman. His father lived in the Far North, beyond the edges of what Danes considered to be the known world, and he traded with a mysterious people called the Sami. It is believed by the Northmen that the Sami possess magical powers—powers that have allowed them to survive in the harsh Northern wastes since the creation of Midgard. They gave him rich white furs, and in return, he gave them grains, iron tools, and mead.

To forge trade relations with the Sami, Egill’s father married one of their chieftain’s daughters. Eilif believed Egill had inherited his mother’s ability to see into the other realms and to interpret the will of the gods. At first, I did not believe Eilif, but I later learned to respect Egill’s abilities and magical powers. Although he shared half his blood with the Sami, he had the look of a Northman. He had long, curly brown hair and a coarse beard that he boasted could stop an arrow from piercing his chest. So proud of his beard was he that he drunkenly dared me once to throw a dagger at it to prove to me it could stop the blade. Years of braiding and exposure to the sea had made the beard hard as wood.

My first few weeks at sea were uneventful. We encountered no storms, held a favorable wind to our back, and praised the gods we did not encounter any beasts beneath the waves. As a child, I feared the monsters of myth, as most children do, and it did not help that the men told stories of ships devoured whole in the open ocean by giant serpents.

I cannot say if the men believed the stories or if they intended to frighten the ship boys as a cruel amusement. The other ship boy, Bjorn, also feared the monsters. To him, the myths were real. I saw him one night, peering over the gunwale into the ocean’s dark waters, illuminated by a bright crescent moon under a clear night sky. When I joined him, I heard a muffled knocking against the hull, and we saw the dark silhouette of a shark that rammed itself repeatedly into the ship’s strakes. Bjorn said the shark’s behavior was an ill portent of things to come. I was not so quick to believe the shark acted with the will of the gods. I searched for a cause and found a bucket of fish guts tied to an oar-port that was leaking blood down the hull and into the water. Bjorn sighed in relief at the revelation.

“Monsters be damned,” I said to him.

Once we arrived at our destination, our good fortune turned against us. No sooner had Egill screamed from the prow that he had spotted land, a fierce wind overtook us from the south. The men reefed the sail, and they set their oars to the water to take the ship to shore, hoping to avoid the approaching tempest. The gods had something else in mind for us. Dark clouds filled the sky and unleashed rain, thunder, and wind that swelled the waves as tall as the ship’s mast. I saw fear in Eilif’s eyes for the first time. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering paddle and worked with all his strength to keep the ship on course.

Bjorn came to me in fear as I held onto the gunwale to steady myself in the waves. I took his arm to pull him toward me and place his hands by mine. The waves rocked us with relentless force, the likes of which I had never witnessed. In my fear, I had not noticed that Bjorn and I stood in the path of a loose crate of supplies. A violent gust of wind swept across the ship and, with the help of a towering wave, tilted Sail Horse until we nearly capsized. The crate slipped and slammed against the gunwale and hurled the two of us into open water.

I should have drowned that day. My body sank beneath the waves, and I felt the cold embrace of the ocean’s water all around me. As I drifted deeper and deeper, I watched helplessly as the light from the living world dimmed to near blackness.

The ocean claimed me for herself and swallowed me whole until my final breath escaped from my chest. I should have sunk and perished, but I remained suspended in place at the precipice of where the light from the surface met the darkness of the deep.

There I saw the silhouette of a monstrous wolf with deep red eyes running through the water as if through a field of grass. The wolf opened his jowls, which stretched from the surface to the deep, as if to devour me, but it passed me by and swirled around my body. It turned back and ran at me again, but then I saw it charge at something below me. It was Bjorn. I reached for Bjorn’s lifeless hand and grasped it with all my strength. At that moment, I felt two powerful hands clasp around my shoulders and pull me from my watery tomb.

I awoke after the storm had given way to a calm sky, with the rhythmic lap and splash of oars cutting through the water. Although my lungs had taken in seawater, the men had managed to pull me back aboard and save me from death. They had set me to rest at the aft of the ship with a fur blanket to keep me warm. When my eyes opened, Eilif knelt at my side.

“The gods have spared you, boy,” he said with relief. “How do you feel?”

I had to think hard about this question. My head still swirled, and my eyes itched as though filled with sand. “My head hurts,” I said with a raspy voice. “What about Bjorn?”

Eilif pointed midship where I saw Bjorn resting under a wool blanket. He said, “When we pulled you from the water, you would not let go of him. If not for you, he would have drowned.” He stood again and resumed his station at the steering paddle with a solemn frown. Egill took his place at my side with a goblet of watered-down wine.

“For your head,” Egill said. His voice was deep and soothing. As I drank from the goblet, he touched my forehead with his fingers. “Still no fever. You are lucky. One of the gods watches over you.”

“I saw a wolf,” I stated.

Egill raised his eyebrows. “A wolf?”

“In the water,” I said as I took a sip from the goblet. “He tried to take Bjorn.”

Egill sat back and stared at me. He rubbed his wooden pendant of Mjolnir between his fingers and said, “Did this wolf speak to you?”

I shook my head.

“How big?” he asked with a tremble in his voice and a furrowed brow.

I looked up at the bronze weathervane atop the mast and said, “Big enough to swallow the ship whole.”

Egill stood and approached Eilif. They spoke a moment, and Eilif called for one of his men to take his place at the steering paddle. They both knelt at my side.

“Egill tells me you had a vision in the water?” Eilif asked.

I nodded.

“A wolf? You are certain?”

I nodded again.

“He saw you?” he asked with a slight crack in his voice.

“I… he…” I said in shock. “He passed me by.”

“It was the wolf Fenrir,” Egill muttered. The name sent a chill through my bones. “He has escaped his chains in Asgard and has come to Midgard to feed on the souls of the living. It was Thor who brought the storm upon us, in chase of the beast. The Aesir will seek to bind him. I have seen it in the runes.”

“Show me,” Eilif insisted.

Egill pulled out a leather satchel that contained several dozen small bones with runic symbols carved into them. He tossed them onto the deck and sorted through the pile with his fingers. Those in the center he arranged into a line and read them. “The first rune is the fox,” he said. “The fox is cunning and good at escaping. Next is the wolf, which the boy saw in his vision. Last, I see the runes for Thor and Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn. They are looking for Fenrir, who has hidden himself in our realm.”

Had I encountered the most dangerous being of all time, known to have the ability to feast on the gods themselves? I shuddered at the thought, and so did Eilif and Egill. Eilif took a deep breath and clenched his hands. He turned to look into Egill’s eyes.

“He is with us, even now?” he asked.

“I cannot say,” Egill replied. “To know, I would need to cross into the spirit world. I do not possess this gift.”

Eilif stroked his beard and stared off into the distance. He whispered, “Let us hope Thor caught him.”

“This boy stood before the beast and lived, as no man has done before him,” Egill said. “The gods watch over him, and we would do well to honor them.” He reached out his hand and placed it on Eilif’s shoulder. “It is a sign. And a good one… I think.”

Eilif laughed. Both he and Egill stood again, and I sat up to regain my strength. None of the other men aboard the ship made a sound; they rowed rhythmically in silence. Their time together had taught them to row in unison without the need for a drum. Drums made too much sound and risked attracting too much attention. As I sat, I took in the sight of the surrounding lands. We had traveled far since the storm and glided up a wide river with a calm flow, flanked on both banks by dense brush and wild, thickly leafed trees.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“They call this Frankland, and this river the Loire. We are half a day’s journey from a city called Nantes,” Eilif said.

“We are here to raid?” I asked.

“No, boy. We are here to trade,” Eilif replied.

“What do we have to trade?” I asked.

Eilif tapped his foot on the deck and said, “We have white furs and ivory in the hold. One hundred pounds of silver’s worth at least. Perhaps more.”

“What will one hundred pounds of silver buy us?” I asked.

Eilif smiled. “You ask many questions, boy. It is a good thing; it means you are not dimwitted. But you must also learn when to be silent.”

We rowed the remainder of the day along the river with no chatter between us. The men seemed unnerved, although I did not know at the time why. As we moved upriver, local barges passed us in the opposite direction. Their occupants stared at us with keen interest. As far as I could tell, they did not fear us.

The barges increased in number the farther we traveled, and we even passed a few headed in our direction. Not until we reached a fork in the river did we see any visible signs of a settlement. What I saw there caused my jaw to drop, much to the amusement of my shipmates.

Before us stood a massive, towering wall that enclosed an entire island on the river. Each branch of the river led to a low stone bridge that connected the island to the mainland, flanked on each side by fortified stone towers. The wall itself was spaced apart by soaring, squared towers capped with conical wooden battlements. Compared with Hagar’s watchtowers, these stood three times as high and three times as thick.

“Welcome to Nantes,” Eilif said.

Our ship maneuvered along the southern branch of the river and docked at the wharf under the bridge. A Frankish man walked the dock to our boat and addressed Eilif in the Frankish language. He had long black hair and a shaved face. To my amazement, Eilif spoke back to him in the foreign tongue and gave him a handful of silver coins. The Frankish man wrote in a leather-bound ledger and walked back up the dock to the city.

“Do you feel strong enough for a walk?” Egill asked.

I nodded.

“Good. Wear this.” He placed in my hand a wooden pendant in the shape of a cross. I stared at it a moment. “Go on, put it on,” he said. “The Franks only allow Christians in the city. If we want to trade, we must look the part.”

I slipped the pendant over my head and around my neck, and I followed Egill off the ship and up a small stone staircase to the bridge where we caught up with Eilif and a few others. Most of the men stayed with Sail Horse where they set about cleaning the deck and inspecting the hull for damage from the storm. Bjorn stayed with them under his blanket, still too weak to join us.

Among the group who ventured into the city, several carried large sacks filled with wares—I assumed the white pelts Eilif had told me about. They also brought some amber and honey, although these were not as valuable as the furs and ivory from the wild North. As we walked, Eilif called me forward to join him at the front of the group. I marveled at the stone archway through which we passed to enter the city, and Eilif took my arm and pulled me in to whisper.

“I want you to keep an eye on everyone who passes us,” he said.

“What?” I did not understand what he had asked of me.

“Do as I say, boy. The city is full of pickpockets. Their hands steal quicker than eyes can catch. Watch my back, and I will watch yours.”

As we walked through the gateway into the city, the air turned putrid and smelled of a mixture of rotten flesh and pig droppings. The stench took me by surprise. Eilif and the others appeared unaffected, while I had to cover my nose and mouth with my tunic.

“Stone walls keep out enemies… and fresh air,” Egill said to me with a chuckle.

The farther we ventured into the city, the more the streets narrowed. Flocks of people filled the space between the buildings, which all stood at least two stories in height and cast the streets in shadow. We bumped and pushed our way through the crowd, and at times it was a battle to keep pace with Eilif. The people there all seemed in a terrible hurry, and none appeared to notice us or consider us of any significance. In fact, many of the people we saw walking the streets of Nantes were not Franks, either. One man had the darkest skin I had ever seen and wore long and colorful robes. Another man I saw wore less lavish clothing but also had darker skin and wore a strange cloth on his head.

Eilif led us through the crowd to a bustling market filled with thin-roofed, open-air stands packed with exotic goods. The market was a sizable open place overshadowed by the most massive stone structure I had ever seen. We had arrived in the evening, and the setting sun’s rays engulfed the building in a majestic golden glow.

“What is that?” I asked.

“It’s a small church,” Egill said.

“Small?” I said in disbelief. For me, at the time, it was the tallest structure I had ever seen. The most impressive building I had seen before then was my father’s great hall, and even the memory of it had mostly faded.

“There’s another one on the other side of the city, twice as big at least,” Egill said.

Eilif marched his way toward a stand filled to the brim with fur pelts. The man in charge wore a simple grey tunic with an auburn hem that covered him to the knees. His hair was a greying blond, brushed straight and held behind his ears by an auburn cap.

As we approached, he was in the middle of bartering with a local on the price of one of his furs. They argued in the Frankish language back and forth until Eilif imposed himself on the two. The Frankish man cowered a little, handed over a sum of coins to the stand’s keeper, and darted into the bustling crowd with a new fur pelt in hand.

“What have I told you about scaring my customers?” the stand’s keeper said. I could not tell if he smiled or frowned through the curls of his beard.

“Save me the lecture, Váli,” Eilif said. He held his arm out to grasp Váli’s and patted him on the shoulder. “I have thirty pelts for you.”

“Not wolves, I hope. Frankland is full of wolves,” Váli said.

“No, white furs from the North,” Eilif said.

Váli clasped his hands in delight. “White fur is what the demoiselles want!” He welcomed us to the back of his stand and had the men unload the pelts behind a stack of other wares. I stood by Eilif with watchful eyes.

“Who’s the boy?” Váli asked.

“A slave I freed from Hagar,” Eilif said.

“Still not trading in slaves?” Váli asked. His smile reminded me of Karl’s sons when they took to mischief.

“No,” Eilif stated. He shot a glance in my direction to see if I was listening. He looked bothered by Váli’s question, as if it aroused memories he would have preferred not to remember.

“You should. There’s money to be made. My cousin Thráinn made three hundred pounds of silver last summer trading slaves.”

“I know,” Eilif said. His eyes wandered as he spoke. After a deep sigh of exasperation, he looked Váli in the eye and said, “I want fifty pounds of silver for the furs and thirty more for the ivory.”

“Should I bother bartering with you?” Váli asked with a smirk.

Eilif chuckled. They grasped each other at the wrist to shake on the exchange. Váli disappeared behind his stand for a short while to count his silver and returned with ten leather satchels, all packed into two wooden holders. Egill ordered two of the men to carry the silver back to the ship while Eilif and I stayed behind to speak with the shopkeeper.

“Have you seen any other Northmen or Danes in these parts of late?” Eilif asked.

“No,” Váli said. “The Franks do not allow new trade with them, not since the raids on Herio and Bouin.”

“Them?” Eilif said with a raised eyebrow.

“I have lived here so long, I forget my place,” Váli said with an embarrassed smile. He reached for an antler comb sitting on the table behind him and ran it through his beard with a few quick strokes. “How did you pass the Frankish defenses on the river? I hear they’ve been sinking Northman ships on sight.”

“They’ll only sink you if you have no silver. For the right price, any ship may pass,” Eilif said. “These Franks are more interested in drowning themselves in their wine than sinking ships. And it’s getting worse.”

“It is true. The best soldiers are fighting in the princes’ rebellion. Thankfully, Nantes has been spared the worst of it, though the count has ridden off for war and left behind an imbecile to govern in his stead. He’s raised merchant taxes three times in the past year!”

“And the Celts? Any news of them?” As Eilif reached for his coin purse, a young girl about my age, dressed in dark unwashed rags, bumped into him. She apologized, then darted off. Eilif felt his belt where his purse should have been, then turned to me and shouted, “Thief!”

On pure instinct, I bolted after her. I dodged, leaped, and lunged through the sea of bodies amassed at the market until I emerged at the far end of the church where I caught a glimpse of the girl’s feet as she ran ahead into a deserted alleyway. Keeping in close pursuit, I saw her turn sharply to the left down another alley. I followed, and this took me to a narrow corridor that led to a dead end against the city wall.

There, I could find no sign of the girl. But I was not fooled. She had nowhere to run, so I knew she had hidden somewhere close. Standing still, I listened for any sound of movement. In the far corner, tucked behind a stack of barrels and tarps, I heard the faint sound of the girl’s breathing.

“I know you are there,” I said. The girl remained silent. “Either come out and face me, or I will come and fetch you!”

“Try,” she said.

Her response surprised me. She spoke my language, which at that moment I realized was unusual.

“You speak the language of the Danes?” I asked.

The girl drummed up the courage to step out from behind a stack of crates pushed up against the wall. She was wild—her hair was a tangled blond mass, and her arms were covered in dirt and scratches.

“My father was a Dane,” she said.

I took a good look at her and saw the marks of shackles on her wrists and ankles. “You are a slave,” I said.

“Was,” she said.

“You were freed?”

“I escaped.”

I laughed. “You escaped from a slaver?”

“I did.”

“Where are your parents, girl?” I asked.

“I do not know, boy,” she growled.

The girl suddenly shuffled back with a look of fear in her eye. She had seen something behind me that had frightened her. I glimpsed again and saw Eilif approaching.

“You have the thief cornered,” he said, smiling.

“She is one of us,” I said to him.

Eilif paused. “In Nantes?” he said, astounded. He laughed. “Stop wasting time and get my silver back.”

I approached the girl and reached out my hand. I motioned with my fingers for her to hand over the purse. She took another step back.

“If you want it, you will have to take it from me,” she said.

As the last word flew from her tongue, I clenched my fist and struck her square in the jaw. She fell back and dropped the purse. Curiously, she did not cry. I reached down for the silver, and she leaped forward to attack me. She threw her body on mine and began to hit me wherever she could. As we fought, I heard the yells of more men behind Eilif. When I looked back, I saw Frankish soldiers with spears and shields jogging toward us.

“Stop!” I said to the girl. “Look!”

She ceased her attack and stood behind me. We watched nervously as Eilif spoke with the soldiers. He motioned with his hands as if to negotiate a fairer price for goods, but I could not hear what he said. The soldiers argued back at him with angry shouts. Their language sounded barbaric to my ears. When Eilif looked back at me he said, “The silver, bring it to me.”

I hurried over to Eilif and handed him his purse. He dumped its contents into his hand, split the sum of the silver into two parts, and gave each soldier a share. They, in turn, took the silver, smiled, and walked away. When they turned their backs on us, I felt relieved.

“What did they want?” I asked.

“The same as what the girl wanted: my silver,” Eilif replied.

“They robbed us?” I exclaimed.

“The guards are corrupt. Come, the city is not as safe as it once was,” Eilif said. He paused again, looked back at the girl, and said, “Come with us, girl. You owe me a debt, and I expect to be repaid.”

“I owe you nothing!” she barked.

“Stay, and those men will rape you,” Eilif said bluntly.

“Why should I believe you will not do the same?” the girl asked.

“You have two choices: stay and be raped, maybe killed, or follow the man who paid silver to save your neck,” he said.

“You spent the silver to save your own neck,” the girl snarled.

Eilif rolled his eyes. “She has quite the tongue on her, doesn’t she?” The girl seemed at a loss for words. She bolted back to her hideout in the far corner of the alleyway and disappeared. Eilif shrugged and walked back toward the market. I followed while keeping one eye on the alley behind us. We reached the fringes of the marketplace when I felt a tug on my tunic. I looked back and saw her standing before me with a knapsack thrown over her shoulder.

“I am Asa,” she said.

She pulled back her hair and revealed the face of a beauty unlike any I had ever seen. Her eyes were brilliant emeralds suspended above high cheekbones and contoured by light blond eyebrows. When she looked at me, her gaze was focused and piercing, yet I saw longing and pain in it too.

“I am Hasting,” I said. “And he is Eilif.”

Eilif led us through the market to the entrance of the city where we passed again under the stone archway and down the path to the wharf. The men had prepared the ship to sail, and Egill waited for us on the dock. He stroked his beard in thought as we approached, and he appeared intrigued by our new friend. He gave a quick wave to the men which signaled to them to prepare to launch Sail Horse.

“Another one?” he joked.

“I will explain later,” Eilif said. “We should leave. This place has changed since the war began. It is not a place for us to trade any longer.”

As Eilif boarded the ship, Egill reached out and caught him by the arm. “Do you think it wise to bring a girl onto our ship? The men have not known a woman for many weeks.”

“She is under my protection,” Eilif said. “And she’ll work.”

The men set their oars to water, and we began our journey back downriver toward the ocean.

3: Armorica

For two days we rowed hard along the coast of Frankland. The gods had robbed the ocean of wind, which made the men uneasy. Superstitions about the weather varied from man to man, but they all agreed that a weak wind, or none at all, did not bode well for us. At night, Egill, whose mystical powers I no longer doubted, stripped naked and chanted at the night sky to beg the gods for their favor. He took mead and meat and threw it into the ocean as an offering to Odin, but by the second night he threw out less of the meat and drank more of the mead.

I continued my duties of cooking, cleaning, and learning all the knots required for the ship’s rigging. Asa helped with some of these tasks, but most of the time she sat at the stern, idle and out of sight of the crew.

At night we slept together in a huddle under the ship’s tarp to keep warm. Eilif had made it my duty to ensure Asa remained out of reach of the others while we slept. Though none had shown an interest in her, men are men, and we did not wish to give any the opportunity to cause trouble.

After an arduous journey fraught with uncertainty about the weather, the wind appeared once again at our back and carried us swiftly to our destination. The crew was elated. When Egill first called out that he had spotted his reference point, I rushed to the prow to catch a glimpse of where we had sailed. The coastline was jagged and rocky, with nowhere to moor. More concerning were the massive, sharp rocks that thrust from the water like pikes from the bottom of a trap.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“The locals call it Armorica,” Egill said, “home to a proud people called the Celts. We call it Bretland.”

“We are no longer in Frankland?” I asked.

Egill laughed. “No, boy. Armorica is something else entirely.”

I marveled at the richness of the land both above and below the cliffs. I called Asa to the prow—I thought of us as friends now—to see what I saw. The ocean around Armorica flourished with wildlife both in and out of the water. Flocks of seabirds circled us overhead, and the bravest among them swooped down below the mast to investigate our ship. Seals lounged on the larger rocks closer to the cliffs. They robed themselves in seaweed and basked in the little sun that shone through the clouded sky. Dolphins joined us on our journey and swam before and beside the ship as if to guide us through the rocks. They jumped high above the waves, flapping their flippers as if to amuse us. Asa, Bjorn, and I lit up with excitement at the sight of them, and our enthusiasm even inspired a few smiles and laughs from the rest of the crew. We had not yet landed, and already Armorica had me under her spell. That was when Eilif joined us at the prow.

“Go on,” he said. “Climb.”

At first I did not know what he meant, but I soon understood when Asa dug her nails into the wood along the prow’s neck and climbed over the gunwale.

“You too,” Eilif said.

Carefully, I climbed and joined Asa, my hands clasped to the dragonhead above me. I had never been so close to the beast, and only then did I truly see it. It was a serpent’s head, carved with the markings of the gods and painted white and gold so it could be seen from far away. Its brow, adorned with vivid colors, gave the beast life. As I held on to keep my balance, its dark, soulless eyes stared through me into the distance.

At first I felt fear, but my courage held and excitement swelled in my heart. I stood ever taller above the ocean as a conquering hero upon his mighty steed. The passing of the wind through my hair and the splash of the water below invigorated my senses. Asa screamed with excitement, and she grew even louder when the dolphins skipped through the water below us. We were birds soaring in the wind as lords of the wind and sea.

“This is as close as any man will ever come to flying,” Eilif said. “With a favorable wind, our ships are the fastest in the world. Remember that, boy. We are a proud people because we have much to be proud of.”

Not long before nightfall, our ship ran aground on a pristine white-sand beach nestled in a cove beneath cliffs. Asa, Bjorn, and I were tasked with carrying supplies and finding a flat place to make camp out of the wind. We loaded our backs with all we could hold and marched together in high spirits, spurred by the excitement we had felt at sea. Even the coarse grass along the path from the beach to the countryside, with its sharp thorns and edges, did not deter our bare feet.

Not far off from where we had landed, we spotted a clearing that appeared to have been scorched and flattened by other men. We approached the grounds and deemed them appropriate for our camp. We dropped our loads and sat hip to hip on the sandy ground with great relief.

We rested while we waited for the others to join us, and Asa gave me a quick, playful poke in the rib. I retaliated, but she swatted my hand away before my finger ever touched her. We giggled. She looked down at her feet and swept the ground with her eyes, then shot me a glance from the side. Bjorn sat beside us all the while with his arms crossed and a furrowed brow.

“Ha! It is our camp from last year, is it not?” Egill said with a booming voice that interrupted our laughter. “And you said it would be covered over by now.”

“A man is sometimes wrong,” Eilif said.

“What now?” I asked.

“We are short on supplies, and the men are hungry. There is a farmer who lives not far from here. Take some silver and fetch us bread and eggs. He will remember us from last year. And take Asa with you. Strength in numbers.”

“How will I speak with him?” I asked. “Does he speak our language?”

“Improvise,” Egill said.

His response irritated me. It was neither helpful nor encouraging. Asa tugged on my arm as if to say I should ignore him. Bjorn stayed behind to help with the tents, while Asa and I left together along a beaten path through coarse beach grass until we arrived at a fence that enclosed a well-kept pasture.

Not far along, we encountered a wicket, which opened with ease. The ground was soft and cold, a welcome relief to my weather-beaten feet that had suffered the sharp slivers of the ship’s deck for many weeks. Asa twirled and danced as we followed the beaten path across the pasture.

“I feel free!” she said as she skipped along beside me, out of breath. “I love this place!”

“Armorica is a beautiful land,” I agreed.

“Let’s play a game.” She tapped me on the shoulder and skipped backward. “Now you catch me!”

It was a challenge I could not refuse. I charged at her with my hand outstretched, but she evaded me. She giggled and taunted me again. I lunged a second time. I nearly caught her, but my foot caught something on the ground, and I stumbled. Asa had a lightness in her feet that allowed her to float gracefully through the air.

“Too slow!” she teased.

I smirked at her, then bolted with all the quickness I could muster. She dodged my first dash with ease and ran along the path. I gave chase and followed her into a small wood where, in an attempt to evade me, she tripped and fell down a slight slope. Not able to stop myself in time, I fell with her, and we rolled together through leaves and mud to the bank of a small creek. I cannot recall how it happened, but I found myself pinned to the ground with Asa on top of me. She smiled. Before I knew it, her lips pressed against mine.

“I am sorry,” she said as she pulled away.

“Why?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t… we can’t.” She blushed, took a deep breath to collect herself, and said, “I like you. You have been kind to me. No one has been kind to me in a long time.”

I smiled and wiped some of the mud off her face. “The others are waiting.”

Asa grew quiet on the journey to the farm. She seemed withdrawn and guarded, almost as if we had never met. Her silence unnerved me. I did not understand women—I still do not presume to—and I frowned in frustration. My frustration grew to anger, and my mind wandered with all manner of thoughts and ideas, working to make sense of what had happened. As I thought about the kiss and where it might have gone wrong, Asa took my hand.

“The farm… it’s there.” Asa pointed at a farmhouse on the edge of a quiet woodland.

The farm was a small square building with wicket and daub walls and a tall thatched roof covered in green and grey moss. Along the side were stacks of chopped wood, bailed hay, and a handcart with a missing wheel. We approached the farm from the path and knocked at the door. From within the building, I heard the clinking and clunking of iron, and the door opened. An older man with a thick grey beard peered through the gap. When he saw we were children, he smiled. He spoke to us in a language I did not understand. My first instinct was to pull the silver pieces from my pocket, but Asa surprised me once again by responding to him in his language.

“Give me your silver,” she said to me mid-conversation with the farmer.

I obliged her. My mouth was agape with awe. Asa snatched the silver from my hand as soon as it glinted in the late afternoon sunlight, and she handed it to the farmer. When she reached out to hand over the silver, the sleeve of her tunic pulled back, and I saw a purple birthmark on her arm. The farmer’s eyes lit up at the sight of the coins, and he disappeared into his farmhouse for a moment. When he returned, he handed over a basket filled with eggs and another three filled with bread, grains, and dried vegetables. He babbled some more, gave us a small wave, and slammed the door. I stared at the food in my hands, dumbstruck at what had just happened.

“We should be getting back. It will be dark soon,” Asa said.

I nodded and said, “Where did you learn their language?”

“Celtic? I don’t know it all that well. I learned it when… well, one day, perhaps, I will tell you all there is to know about me, but not yet,” she whispered.

I looked upon her with admiration. She blushed, glanced at the ground, and shot brief, sweeping looks at me. We were young, and we were starting to fall in love.

“Hasting!” we heard a voice call out from across the pasture. It was Egill. “Hasting, are you all right?”

“We’re coming!” I yelled.

We had completely lost track of time. What should have been a short errand had taken us long enough to raise suspicion at camp. Asa took my hand to begin walking back, but for fear of showing affection in front of Egill, I shrugged it off. I had not meant to hurt her feelings, but her demeanor changed in an instant to one of disbelief and resentment.

“Where have you been? We’re hungry!” Egill said.

“We took a wrong turn by the creek,” I said.

Egill took one look at Asa and said, “Is she all right?”

“I am fine,” she growled.

We hurried back to the beach by following the path, joined the whole way by Egill. None of us spoke a word.

When we arrived, I was astounded by the quick work the men had made of setting up camp. They had erected pikes around the perimeter, and they had pitched three large tents around a central fire pit. There were no chairs, so the men sat in the sand, some with their legs crossed, and others in a lounging position with their worn feet close to the fire. Eilif emerged from the middle tent in his battle garments—a thick leather jerkin, bracers, and greaves—fitted and ready for combat.

“Ah! The explorers have returned,” he said.

“Sorry,” I uttered.

“We were more worried than anything,” Eilif said. “Come, we are expecting guests before nightfall. Wash up and eat.”

“Guests?” I asked.

“A king,” Egill said with a grin ear to ear.

“His name is Nominoë. He is one of the three kings of Armorica,” Eilif said. “His father was an important trade partner of ours. It was from him we bought our salt.”

“Was?” I asked.

Eilif sat in the sand beside his men close to the fire and said, “Nominoë’s father is dead.”

As they spoke, three horsemen appeared at the edge of our camp. I had never seen horses before. On Hagar’s farm we had raised pigs, goats, and asses, but no horses. They are too expensive to feed, stubborn to train, and make tough meat, Hagar used to say. They are majestic beasts and gallant in their stride. These horses were kings of the animal world, and they carried themselves as such, or so it seemed. The Celts had braided their golden manes and kept their coats brushed and shining. All the horses described to me by the Northmen were small but hearty; these were tall, graceful creatures with beautifully sculpted muscles and a smooth light-brown coat.

The horsemen wore brown woolen cloaks that covered them to their instep, and the rider at the forefront wore a tight-fitting velvet cap. The two horsemen behind him carried their leader’s sigil, a white fox tail on a long burgundy banner that fluttered in the ocean’s breeze.

Their leader was young, perhaps a few years older than I, and he carried himself with his chest held high. He exuded confidence. As they approached, several of Eilif’s men moved to meet them at the camp’s entrance. The Celtic leader raised his hand in a sign of peace. Eilif stepped forward to greet the Celts with caution in his eyes.

He gripped the hilt of his sword, which remained sheathed upon his girdle. The Celts’ leader began to speak and, for a moment, I believed Eilif would reply to him as he had done with the Franks in Nantes. Here, he remained silent. The air grew thick with tension as the two groups stared at each other. From behind me, Asa’s voice broke the silence as she spoke in the Celtic language, to the surprise of everyone present.

“You speak their language?” Eilif asked her.

Asa nodded.

“Thank the Norns! Come, tell them what I say. Ask him if he is Nominoë.”

Asa put the question to the young leader of the horsemen. He answered in a manner everyone understood to be yes.

“Tell him I knew his father. We were partners in trade. I hope to continue that trade.”

The two exchanged words amicably, and Eilif looked at me wide-eyed and filled with excitement. He had quite evidently expected the meeting to turn sour.

“Nominoë says he knows about the trade,” Asa said. “He says he no longer has access to the salt his father traded with you because the Franks have occupied the marshes in Guérande, where the salt is from.”

Eilif’s excitement turned to enmity. “What does he mean?”

“He has an offer for us,” Asa translated.

“Out with it!” Eilif exclaimed.

Asa rubbed her face and said, “He says he needs someone to draw the Franks away from Guérande long enough to retake the marshes with his army.”

“Is he asking us to fight for him?” Eilif asked.

Nominoë again answered in a manner everyone understood to mean yes, to which Eilif said, “Ask him what he has in mind.”

“He asks us to attack the coast south of the Loire, and to be sure they see us sailing that way,” Asa said.

“He will pay us?” Eilif asked.

“In silver,” Asa said.

“How much silver?” Eilif asked.

Nominoë glanced back at his companions, and one of them whispered words to him that none of us could hear. He readjusted himself in his saddle and gave his reply to Eilif.

“Will five hundred pounds suffice?” Asa asked.

Eilif tilted his head back and laughed. Until then he had merely peddled a few dozen pounds of silver each summer. Five hundred pounds would change his life. Where had the Celts come up with this number? They seemed to understand we Vikings sought wealth above all else, but so much? It felt as though we had won a game of luck.

“Agreed,” Eilif said. “Deliver the silver at sunrise, and we will raid somewhere south of the river.”

“Nominoë says he will pay you after the deed is done,” Asa said.

“I want to see the silver first,” Eilif insisted.

Nominoë leaned in to whisper with one of his companions. They discussed the matter back and forth for a moment, then sat up straight on their horses once again.

“He invites you to his city to see the silver. But only you… and me to translate,” Asa said.

“May I come?” I asked out of turn.

Eilif glared at me. Before he could say anything, Asa turned to Nominoë and asked him. The question risked upsetting the entire balance of the negotiation, and Eilif cringed when it was proposed. To our surprise, Nominoë again answered in that manner which everyone understood to mean yes.

Egill began to laugh so hard he bent over and fell to one knee.“The gods have a twisted sense of humor,”

“Just… make sure the camp doesn’t burn down while I am away,” Eilif said.

Egill’s laughter ceased. “You mean to follow them?” he asked. “But it could be a trap, to kill you.”

“It is not,” Eilif said. “If they kill me, you will avenge me. They will not risk it. And I have a feeling the girl knows more than she has let on.”

We arrived at Nominoë’s city the following afternoon, though one might have convinced me it was evening since the low-hanging clouds and light drizzle made the countryside a somber sight.

We met Nominoë and his two bannermen on the outskirts of the city where we passed through a wooden palisade in grave need of repairs. It stood the height of a tall man, but many of the wooden planks had rotted and fallen, leaving holes large enough for a smaller man to slip through.

On the other side, we passed along two rows of small, square houses, built in the same style as the farm we had visited the previous day. They were built side by side, with enough room between them to store tools and other household supplies.

Within the city, the muddy road gave way to a raised plank walkway. It connected all the main buildings and allowed those living there to travel from one place to another without soiling their feet. Nominoë led us to a small stone church built with white lime and mortar walls that had greyed from the rain.

“Nominoë invites us to pray with him in his church,” Asa said.

Eilif and I refused. Nominoë did not appear vexed in the least. He entered the church, followed by his bannermen and Asa.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To pray,” she replied.

My eyes opened wide with surprise once again, and I asked, “You are Christian?”

Asa nodded and, sensing my discomfort with the revelation, turned her back to me and entered the church behind the others. I crossed my arms and glowered in dismay. Eilif leaned against the church wall as if relaxed. He reached into his pocket and withdrew some sunflower seeds to chew. I looked back at him with anger in my eyes. This did not seem to bother Eilif, and he extended his hand to offer me some seeds. I refused.

“Full of surprises, isn’t she?” Eilif said.

“Too many,” I said.

“Women!” he scoffed.

We stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, both deep in thought about what next to say. I felt Eilif had some wisdom he wanted to share with me but that he knew I might not like. All the while, I wrestled with my feelings for a girl about whom I knew nothing.

“Hasting, I like to think we have grown close, you and I, in the short time we have sailed together,” Eilif said. His words drew my full attention.

“As do I,” I said.

He gave me a half smile and said, “Do you understand what Nominoë wants?”

“To make us rich?” I proposed.

Eilif laughed. “Yes, but for a price. For four summers, we have sailed from the Northlands to Ireland, and to here. We have traded in furs, salt, and silver, and each summer our wealth has grown. But now… now the wars of the Franks and the Celts will draw us in. We will become woven into the politics of the South.”

“For five hundred pounds of silver, is it not a fair price?” I asked.

“You are new to us and young, and so you do not yet know. You will be a strong leader one day, I think, and so this you should learn: when I was your age, I sailed on a ship that roved these shores. We plundered churches, farms, and towns, and our wealth grew. But soon the Christians learned when we would arrive and so abandoned their lands in the summer. Each raid grew more meager. When the wealth dried up, the men killed our chieftain and returned north. I learned that day to be cautious. I devoted my time to summer trade instead of plunder, and each summer I made silver, and my men made silver. I do not wish to raid, and I do not wish to make war. But to keep my trade, I must make peace with Nominoë. Tomorrow, that peace will require me—us—to raid, and to fight.” He lifted himself from the church’s wall and spat shells on the ground.

“It is what Vikings are supposed to do,” I said. I did not mean to cut him off, but the words flew from my mouth before I could consider them well. “Does this mean you will take and trade in slaves again?”

Eilif scowled. “It is likely,” he said. “You heard Váli as clearly as I—we will double our silver with slaves.”

His answer bothered me at first. I had been a slave, and I knew that hardship well. Yet, I understood Eilif’s motivations. He did not wish to lose command of Sail Horse, or the loyalty of his crew. It dawned on me at that moment the power wealth holds over men. Though we are the creators of our wealth, we soon become slaves to it.

With a disruption in his trade, Eilif had to work with what he had, even if it betrayed his principles. I found his predicament a cruel sort: he was a slave to his wealth and had to take slaves to make and keep his wealth. Like Hagar, his primary duty was to his followers. For the first time, I saw the same duality in Eilif that I had seen in Hagar, and I understood that perhaps Hagar, for as much as I hated him, was beholden to the same shackles of principle and honor that forced Eilif to return to the slave trade. The gods have a twisted sense of humor, indeed.

“What of next summer?” I asked. “Will you not need to earn five hundred more pounds?”

Eilif smiled at my words and said, “Most of my crew joined for a single summer, as is the case with most men who choose to rove. Next year’s recruits will know little of what happened this year, except Egill and, hopefully, you.”

As we spoke, Asa stepped out of the church to join us. She kept her head bowed low, as if embarrassed, and said nothing. Eilif looked at me as if to urge me to say something, but I had no words. A tense and quiet moment followed, broken only by the cacophony of Nominoë and his entourage stepping out onto the boardwalk from the church. They laughed as if the priest had told the most side-splitting joke they had ever heard.

“Are they ready to show us the silver?” Eilif asked.

“Follow me,” Asa said.

Nominoë led us along the main thoroughfare of the city to a wooden two-story building with four thick pillars supporting the roof above the entrance. A soldier stood guard at the door and nodded to his lord as he passed. The bobbing of his head continued as the rest of us followed, which made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. My heart began to race and a dryness gripped the back of my throat. Something was amiss.

“Eilif,” I muttered.

He stopped and turned to me, two steps from the doorway. “What is it?”

I shook my head to alert him to my intuition. His eyes filled with concern. He looked above and around for signs of trouble. From within the building, Nominoë urged us to enter. The more we waited, the louder his voice grew. Eilif shrugged me off and entered the building while I remained frozen in place outside. Asa took my hand ever so gently and, with a calm and reassuring smile, led me through the door.

Inside, the walls around us felt close and cramped. The low ceiling and smoke from the hearth on the far wall made it hard to breathe. My heart continued to pound in my chest and even skipped a few beats here and there, which made my angst worse. Every man who looked down at me on our way through the rooms gave me a shrinking feeling, one of despair and emptiness. I wanted to run or scream. We arrived at a small room in the back of the building where Eilif kneeled beside four wooden chests, each decorated with serpentine carvings and golden handles, and each overflowing with silver.

“Your five hundred pounds of silver,” Asa said on behalf of Nominoë.

Eilif and our host continued to speak, but their voices faded into the background. My mind raced with thoughts of doom, and the walls closed in around me. My desire to escape overwhelmed me, and I darted from that room through the others and out the front doorway into the street. I panted and could not catch my breath. A knot formed in the pit of my stomach, and I felt as though I might die then and there, for no other reason than fear.

After what seemed like a long moment, the feeling of panic subsided. The fresh air and light rain outside helped to cool my head. Finally, I was able to stop the trembling of my fingers.

I later learned that the Northmen call what I experienced Loki’s Delirium, for they believe that the great trickster himself enjoys tormenting the minds of mortal men to cause a panic for no reason at all. He strikes when men least expect it, and often when they need their wits about them most. Here he tricked me to believe danger lurked behind the gaze of every Celt around me, even though the threat was far from real.

As I waited outside in the rain, Eilif left the building alone to find me. When he saw me kneeling on the boardwalk, he called for me with anger in his voice.

“What has possessed you, boy?” He gripped my shoulder so tightly that my fingers tingled.

“I needed fresh air,” I answered.

“You frightened me,” he scolded. “They’re all wondering about you.”

I felt shame for what had happened. “I meant no disrespect,” I said. “You saw all five hundred pounds?”

Eilif took a deep breath of relief and said, “Packed and ready for us, as soon as we fulfill our end of the bargain.” He wiped his nose with his hand, then wiped his hand on his breeches. “There’s something else.”

“What?” I asked.

“Asa has asked to stay here,” he said hesitantly.

His words were a hunter’s spear thrust through my heart. “Why?”

“Hasting, my ship is no place for a girl her age. I know the two of you have forged a close bond… but look at this place. It could be a home for her. They promised her a fresh bed, a roof over her head, and food for the day,” Eilif said.

“Are we finished here?” I spat.

Eilif nodded. We left without saying farewell and took to the road. I brooded the whole way back. When we arrived at camp, we were greeted by Egill, whose cheeks glowed from all the wine he had drunk during our absence. All the men had drunk their fill, and they all cheered when Eilif announced that Nominoë indeed had five hundred pounds of silver to give. It was to be a festive night to celebrate the most valuable enterprise any of these Vikings had ever embarked upon in their lives. As they celebrated, Egill sat beside me in the sand. I stared at the campfire.

“Why are you glowering? It is making my wine taste bad,” Egill said with a heavy slur. “Is it the girl?”

I nodded.

“Bah! You’re a Viking now; there will be plenty of women in your life soon enough, especially when we have that five hundred pounds of silver in our hands.”

Egill understood the meaning of my silence and left me where I sat, alone. That night, the crew drank themselves into oblivion, for they knew what lay ahead. Raids were an ugly and dangerous business. Little did we know then that most of the men on the beach that night would not live to see the silver spent.

4: First Raid

The sun had barely broken over the horizon when we set sail toward the south. A fair wind carried the ship at a gallop along the coast of Frankland, allowing time for the crew to relax and eat their first meal of the day. Some of the men continued to drink wine to abate the pain from the previous night’s intemperance, while others drank fresh water and napped on deck. Eilif sat at the steering paddle, while Egill and two others worked the ropes of the sail. There was no chatter among the crew that morning, and the atmosphere aboard was taut and uneasy. I went about my regular duties, and when I finished, I joined Eilif at the aft of the ship.

“Where did Nominoë tell us to raid?” I asked him.

“He called it Bouin. It is the second island after the mouth of the river,” Eilif explained. “I’m not sure of the reasoning for targeting it, but it makes no difference to us.”

“How will we prove we raided it?” I asked.

“A few severed heads will do,” he said.

I laughed uncomfortably, thinking he had made an ill-natured joke, but Egill’s disapproving scowl told me differently. When I understood they intended to return to Armorica with the heads of Franks we had not yet met, butterflies fluttered in the pit of my stomach. I had thought during our travels that Eilif and his crew were different, that they did not partake in the same kind of brutality I had witnessed in Hagar’s lands. I was wrong.

Near midday, with the wind still at our back, we sailed a perilous strait between the coast of Frankland and a long and seemingly uninhabited island. Rocks protruded from the water and posed a real danger to us as we glided closer to the island, and although the tide was high, two of Eilif’s men kept careful watch of the waters ahead of the prow.

As we traversed the strait, a small island came into view. Smokestacks reached for the sky from behind a light grove of trees that overlooked the dune. Several fishing boats floated on the water no more than a stone’s throw from shore. These were small, rectangular craft powered by a single pair of oars, with enough room aboard for one or two men. When they saw our sails, they pulled in their nets and set their oars to water. I could tell they feared us, even from a distance. We were not the first Vikings they had ever seen.

“Reef the sail,” Eilif commanded. “Oars to water!”

The men took their positions on the rowing benches and obeyed their chieftain’s commands. Egill reached underneath one of the benches and pulled out a leather-bound drum along with two drumsticks tipped with wrapped cloth. He placed the drum on the deck and, with a grin on his face, he called me over. He sat at the aft of the ship with his legs wrapped around the drum and began to beat the sticks upon it one strike at a time. He kept a steady rhythm that matched the pulling and easing of the oars. When I stood over him, I saw he had a crazed look in his eye.

“Do you see how I strike the drum?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You will sit, and you will play. Strike hard, boy. We want them to hear us!” He stood, handed me the drumsticks, and plopped me down in front of the drum. “Play!” he said.

I beat the drum, but this did not please him.

“Louder!” he screamed. “I want to fill the air with fear—let them know the Northmen are here! Play! Louder! Bom, bom, bom!”

With each strike of the drum, I forced my arm downward with all the strength I had. In a short time, I mastered the rhythm. Egill led the men in a thunderous chant that both frightened and invigorated me.

The men repeated each phrase after Egill in unison: “Odin our Allfather, we shed blood at your altar; man’s blood is our offer, Odin our Allfather!”

Eilif steered Sail Horse straight onto the beach where the locals had moored their ships. We crashed into the ground with a mighty thud, which sent me flying forward into a rower’s lap. He laughed and helped me to my feet.

“Shields on deck!” Eilif commanded, and the men repeated the command.

Each man reached beneath his bench and pulled from below a rounded wooden shield painted with unique colors and designs and rimmed with rawhide. Some of the men pulled more than just shields from the hold; they also had armor and weapons stowed below. They donned leather bracers and shin guards, and some wore simple iron helmets. I wondered if the nose bridge on their helmets ever obstructed their sight during battle. Egill donned his own, a much more expensive-looking iron helmet with a visor that covered his eyes in the way dark markings encircle the eyes of an owl. Runic symbols covered all the edges of the mask, giving him an otherworldly and frightening appearance. As I marveled at him, I felt a hand touch my shoulder.

“I have an important mission for you,” Eilif said.

When I turned to look at him, he too had donned fine arms and armor. He wore a full maille shirt, which was something I had never seen before. It had a black tint, apart from some rust, and it chinked like a sack of silver coins whenever he moved. Over the maille he wore a light surcoat that made his shoulders appear as wide as a bear’s, and at his waist he girded a silver-hilted sword and a simple wood-hilted seax.

“Are you listening?” he barked. The question snapped me back into the moment. “Stay with the ship.”

“What?” I said, confused.

“Stay with the ship,” Eilif said again. “You and Bjorn must protect the ship while we are gone. If you see another ship, especially other Danes, find me in the village. I do not want anyone to catch us off guard!”

Panicked, I nodded my head in agreement. The crew jumped over the gunwale into the shallow water below and assembled on the beach. I rushed to the prow below the dragon’s head to watch them. Eilif and Egill led their warriors in a chant, and they howled together like wolves under a full moon.

The small force of thirty men charged up a narrow path that cut through the dune from the beach to the village, shouting and growling as they ran. When the last man vanished from sight, I looked back at Bjorn and the empty ship with a sense of angst. On one hand, I felt enlivened by the crew’s vigor; on the other, I knew their purpose, and it seemed wrong. For the first time in my life, my hand trembled for no reason, a tendency I have had ever since in the moments before battle.

“You look frightened,” Bjorn said. “What troubles you?”

“I am not keen on slaughter,” I said.

Bjorn chuckled and said, “It will not be a slaughter. We played the drum so they would hear us. Those who would have been slaughtered will have run.”

“And those who stayed behind?” I asked.

“They stayed to fight—a fair challenge,” Bjorn said.

I nodded and did not say more. A blazing afternoon sun battered the ship’s deck while we waited for the crew to return. My tunic was soaked in sweat within a short time. An eerie quiet set in on the beach. I focused my ears for any sound from the raid, but I could hear nothing other than the rolling of the waves upon the shore. A voice broke the tranquility. I looked up to find a Frankish man approaching our ship from the dune with his hands raised above his head and fear written in his eyes. He spoke to me in his language. Unable to understand him, I talked back to him in mine.

“Go away!” I shouted.

I flicked my wrists as if to shoo away a pig, but the man didn’t move. Gripped with fear, for I was still a young boy with far less strength than him in my arms, I searched for anything sharp within arm’s reach. To my relief, I spotted a filleting knife planted in one of the ship’s rowing benches nearest me.

Before I could reach it, the man saw the blade. He looked at me, then at the knife, and at me again with increasing panic. Both of us remained frozen, locked in a standoff of fear and confusion. Bjorn, who had not yet seen the man, walked toward me from the aft of the ship. He froze at the sight of the Frank.

When I reached for the knife, I heard the cheerful laughter of men approaching the ship from beyond the dune. The Frank heard them as well, and I shooed him away again to give him one last chance to escape. I wished he had.

The moment my fellow Danes crossed over the dune, they spotted the man and called for his capture. Though I do not know who threw the blade, he hit his mark. A throwing knife thudded into the Frankish man’s back as he attempted to flee. He fell on the sand and struggled to crawl forward. Egill was first among the men to approach him.

“Have you ever killed a man before?” Egill asked me.

“No,” I said with a quiver in my voice.

He put on a crooked smile and said, “He will be your first.”

My legs turned to mush. Not wanting to disappoint Egill, I crawled over the gunwale and trudged through the receding water. He placed an ax in my hand and pulled the man up to his knees by his hair. The man looked at me with pleading eyes, and he clasped his hands together to pray. His tongue was a twitchy snake, thrashing about in his mouth as he begged for his life.

“Remember, he would not hesitate to kill you if given the chance,” Egill said. “Go on, kill him.”

As I raised the ax above my head, my breathing grew shallow, and my chest tightened.

“Kill him!” Egill urged. His voice boomed across the beach.

A few more men from the crew joined him to encourage me. I looked around for Eilif, hoping for him to put a stop to it, but he was nowhere in sight. “Kill him,” they shouted. Their voices drowned out all other sounds. I looked again into the man’s eyes. The color of his skin  had turned pale from the loss of blood. He is dead already, I told myself.

With one last deep breath, I bore down with all my strength. The blade missed its mark. I had meant to drive it into the man’s skull, but my swing fell to the right. As it landed, it sliced through an ear and lodged itself where the neck meets the shoulder. Blood oozed from the wound, but it did not spatter as I thought it might.

“Good! Again!” Egill said. “Kill him this time!”

Before I could raise the ax again, I heard a chinking of armor approach and the ax’s shaft was seized from my hand. It was Eilif. He took the man by the hair and, while jerking upward, chopped at the sides of his neck. After four or five chops, the head lifted from the body, which fell with a muffled thump on the wet sand.

“That is how it is done, Hasting,” Eilif said.

“The boy has turned green,” Egill said with a thick, raspy laugh.

The others laughed with him. Even the sea, for all her effort, had not made me sick to the point of vomiting. The sight of the severed head sent me into an unstoppable spiral that culminated in the purging of my stomach. I felt my morning meal rise in my chest, and I stumbled toward the ship to lean against its strakes. There, I expelled all that my stomach held. When I looked back up, the crew had returned to their duties as if nothing had happened. By now, most of the men had crossed over the dune. They carried crates of goods—cheese, bread, and wine, as well as some livestock. Not far behind them, the first captured villagers appeared with rope tied around their wrists, led by one of Eilif’s men.

“I expect you to scrub that off later,” Egill said as he and Eilif boarded the ship.

“Will you put a bag over it or something?” I asked at the sight of the severed head.

Everyone laughed, including Eilif who said, “No, boy. You need to learn to tolerate blood. You say you want to be a Viking? Here you are!”

As the last words left his lips, he tossed the head in my direction. It landed at my feet, then rolled forward toward the shallow waves of the rising tide.

I fainted.

I awoke again to the lap and plash of the oars. It was a soothing sound, and one I had grown to enjoy. The raid seemed a fading dream in my mind, but I knew it had been real. As I opened my eyes, I heard Egill talking in the background with some of the crew. They spoke of all the things they would do with their share of the silver, since it now seemed a near guarantee. The raid had met little resistance, and from the sounds of it, they had razed the village to the ground. I tilted my head to see where I had landed and saw Eilif behind me at the steering paddle.

“Feeling better?” he asked. “You hit your head when you fell. Let Egill take a look at you before you stand.”

His concern for my wellbeing surprised me. The man I had witnessed at Bouin was a calloused monster. Here, he acted as a father concerned for his son. When Egill knelt at my side, he felt underneath my neck and lifted my head from the deck.

“Any pain?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

Egill nodded and helped me up. “You are all right,” he said.

“How can you care so much for me, yet so little for the man whose head you took?” I asked.

The question gave Eilif and Egill pause. Looking back, I wonder what they must have thought of me at that moment. It seemed as if no one had ever posed such a question to them before, as if they had lived a life of acting without thought or care of the effect of their deeds. Egill scratched his head, dumbfounded. Eilif, on the other hand, had an answer I will never forget.

“You are one of us now,” he said. “The world is a cruel, unforgiving place. If they had been in our position, those people we killed would not have hesitated to do the same. The best any man can hope to do is look after his own and fight those who would seek to do them harm.”

“Besides, we gave them fair warning,” Egill said. “The women and children fled, and the men accepted our challenge. It was an honorable fight, and we won.”

I sat in silence for the rest of the afternoon to contemplate what I had witnessed and what Eilif and Egill had said. When I’d first met Eilif, he had shown himself to be a peaceful man with trade and wealth on his mind. Now I knew him as a rover, a Viking, and on that first raid I had not appreciated what it meant.

Within myself I saw two choices: let the shock of it all defeat me, or rise to the occasion and travel the path the gods had chosen for me. After all, I had faced the Great Wolf and lived to tell about it. At least, that was what Egill had said. Courage filled my heart, and I got to my feet. I approached the severed head, which Eilif had placed in a basket two arms’ lengths away from him, and stared at it a long while. Eilif watched me with great intrigue.

“Your heart will harden to it,” he said.

“It is not the worst sight I have ever seen,” I said.

I spoke true. When I examined the head, it seemed a far less horrible fate than that of Eanáir. The sight of her corpse chained to the rock, pecked away by birds and consumed by worms, returned to remind me of where I had been and the horrors I had already witnessed. With a heavy sigh, I reached into the basket, grabbed the blood-soaked head, and raised it up.

“My heart will harden to it,” I uttered so only those nearest could hear my words. After a taut moment of silence, I lowered the head, placed a cloth over the basket, and then reached over the gunwale to rinse my hands in the sea.

“I hope to be as brave as you one day,” Bjorn said to me while I washed my hands.

His words gave me pause. During the raid, Bjorn had seemed far more confident than I, as if his heart had dulled to the hardships of a Viking’s life, but not so. No man is born desiring to fight and kill; such deeds are learned through tribulation and necessity. The first kill is the hardest and the one that marks a man the most. I will never forget the Frank’s eyes, nor the pallor in his face, nor the grimace of pain when I severed his ear and split apart his neck and shoulder.

By nightfall, we had not yet reached our camp along the Armorican coast where we were to meet with Nominoë. Instead, we made camp along a sandy beach that curved inward away from the ocean, protected to the north by an outcropping of rock.

We moored the ship and made our tents, but we lit no fires to avoid unwanted attention from the surrounding plains. No one complained of this since it was summer, and the air remained warm throughout the night.

The following day, we left again at the break of dawn and journeyed for half the morning before arriving at our destination. Rather than beaching the ship, Eilif steered close to land and sent men to drive pikes into the ground and rope us in. It was high tide, and the ocean would later recede; if not carefully planned, it could trap the ship on the beach.

“Close enough to load and unload, and far enough to escape,” Egill explained. His quips of wisdom never ceased to fascinate me.

We disembarked to make camp again and, most importantly, to build the fire that would alert Nominoë to our return. By midafternoon, the grounds appeared as if we had never left. All that stood apart from our last visit was the one person I hoped I would see again upon our return: Asa. Fewer than two days had passed, and yet my heart yearned to see her, to touch her skin and feel her warmth, and to lock her lips with mine. In a way, I found solace in thinking of her. It helped to ease my mind.

As fate would have it, we indeed met again that day. Not long after our fire roared and spewed a column of smoke toward the other realms, Nominoë arrived at our camp on horseback with Asa on his lap. When she saw me standing by the fire, she leapt from the horse, ran between the pikes, and jumped into my arms for a warm embrace.

“Are you all right? How was the raid?” She patted my shoulders as if to make sure I still had both arms.

“Fine… fine,” I said. At first, I remembered that I had been angry with her when we left. But the events of the past two days now made those feelings seem trivial.

“It went well?” she asked.

“We did what we had to do,” I said.

“Did you… kill anyone?” she whispered.

“He took a man’s head,” Bjorn interjected. “Not cleanly, but he did it.”

I guessed that Asa would think less of me for what I had done, but to my surprise she smiled and stroked my face. As we spoke, Nominoë stood at the edge of the camp, waiting for someone to invite him in. His men stood close watch behind him with their hands clasped around their spears. Eilif approached the Celts and whistled to get Asa’s attention. Nominoë immediately took to talking.

“He asks about the raid,” Asa said.

“There were no surprises,” Eilif replied.

“He asks you to show proof,” she continued.

Egill brought over the basket containing the severed head. Eilif reached in and pulled it out for all to see. Nominoë covered his mouth and nose, as did his soldiers.

“Tell him we also have slaves, and he may speak with them if he so wishes,” Eilif stated. Two slaves were brought forward for Nominoë to examine. “Tell him I have already spoken with them, and they are indeed from the island of Bouin.”

Nominoë spoke again, but his words were so mumblingly quick that Asa could not translate all of them.

“Nominoë is not accustomed to the sight of blood,” she said.

“Did you hear that, Eilif? He can’t stand the sight of blood. Poor baby!” Egill exclaimed with his thick, rumbling laugh.

“Tell him I want my silver. I have earned it,” Eilif demanded.

When she translated the words, Nominoë nodded. “You will have your silver in the morning,” she said.

Nominoë and his men left the camp, but Asa stayed behind for the night. She and I watched the sunset together from the dune. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was as if the gods had made the world perfect for us at that moment so our growing affection might blossom into a thriving flower. It was an innocent affection—one we were not yet old enough to take to its full extent. What we felt for each other rivaled the love stories of legendary kings and queens, and even the gods. Our love was destiny, or so we thought.

After we spent the night in each other’s arms, Nominoë arrived with a cart containing all the chests of silver he had promised. The men rejoiced at his arrival. Asa and I, however, remained solemn. When the commotion settled and Eilif had what he wanted, the crew set about dismantling the camp. Nominoë called for Asa as he went, and she walked away from me, her hand still holding mine. When our fingers drifted apart, the longing in my heart set in. Halfway through camp, she turned back, ran to me, and held me in one last embrace.

“Promise you will visit me,” she whispered. “Promise me you will come back.”

“Every summer,” I said.

She leaned back to look at me. Her eyes were whirlpools, drawing me in whether I desired it or not. “You will? Every summer?”

I knew I could not promise I would return. Life at sea is hard and dangerous, and often deadly. Yet somehow I knew I would see her again. Nothing in this world or the next would have the power to stop me, I thought. I nodded yes, I would return. She smiled and sauntered backward, then turned away and rejoined Nominoë. She climbed upon his horse, and they rode off into the distance. As I watched them leave, I felt Eilif’s presence behind me.

“I can teach you to sail, to trade, and to make war. But to love? That is something you will have to learn on your own,” he said. “And whatever you do, don’t go looking for advice from Egill. He’s clueless.”

Our ship left the Armorican coast loaded down with men, silver, and supplies. The atmosphere aboard felt festive. We were conquering heroes returning home from a hard-fought war. Eilif set our course for Jutland, the land of my birth, and the land where he and his men wintered.

It was not my destiny, however, to return to Jutland on that voyage. No, as we sailed from the safety of the land, we soon took sight of sails on the horizon. Ships so far from shore could not be Franks or Celts, and we knew the instant we saw them that they were Northmen.

“How many do you see?” Eilif asked with his hand raised above his eyes to block the sun.

Egill focused his gaze. “I count six.”

His words sent a shudder of fear across the deck. The crew knew other Northmen would pose a challenge, and with five hundred pounds of silver in the hold, we risked much. Egill grasped my shoulder and pulled me in front of him. “You have young eyes. How many do you count?”

I stared as hard as I could. The sun made the water glitter like a sea of colorful jewels. It was beautiful, but it also made the ships harder to see. Still, I saw their shadows dancing about in the light and counted them. “Six,” I said. “I see six ships.”

Eilif’s concern showed on his face. He kept his gaze fixed in the distance and ignored the nervous chatter that had gripped the ship. Egill reached below the gunwale and tore off a hunk of bread from one of the loaves the Celts had given us. He sunk his teeth into the crust with a loud crunch and began to chew with loud lip-smacks. Soon the ship fell into a tense silence broken only by the mash and thrash of Egill’s chewing.

“Can we outrun them?” I asked.

Egill laughed. “Loaded down as we are? Not a chance,” he said half-muffled with a mouthful of bread. As he spoke, a small piece flew from his mouth and landed on my tunic. He reached out with his meaty paw and swatted at my chest to wipe it off.

“Shields on deck!” Eilif commanded. The order surprised the crew. “Mount shields.”

Each man drew his shield from below and placed it over the gunwale above his rowing bench where he locked it into place between two wedges nailed to the outboard. The shields covered the ship like dragon scales. Eilif pulled the steering paddle hard to change course for the fleet on the horizon, which he knew would give chase if we tried to outrun them.

A southerly wind helped pull the ship in their direction and toward the setting sun. As Sail Horse glided over the crest and into the trough of each wave, our shields rattled against the strakes. The rattling sounded to me like the low growl of a cornered beast preparing to defend itself.

“When a ship mounts its shields, it is a sign that we will not attack,” Egill said. “Mounted shields cannot be used in a fight.”

The thought made me squirm. Before us sailed six ships filled with warriors, and our leader had chosen not only to face them but also not to attack. The crew sprang into action, preparing all parts of the ship, and themselves, for a confrontation. We did not know who these men were, yet by virtue of their being Northmen so far from their homeland, their intentions were clear.

Eilif placed me on the steering paddle with the simple instruction to stay true, while he and the others donned their battle garments. Eilif chose to wear his leathers rather than the maille. When I asked him about his choice, he replied, “Maille sinks.” At the front of the ship, several of the men had their trousers around their knees and their rumps hanging over the gunwale in the space between the shields and the prow.

“Shit sinks too,” Egill laughed. All the others scowled with anxious eyes.

The men cut the throats of the slaves we had taken in Bouin and threw their corpses into the sea. Egill explained to me that their deaths served the dual purpose of sacrificing to the gods and lightening the ship to give us more speed.

“I need your young eyes,” Eilif said. He took the steering paddle and pushed me toward the gunwale. “Do you see their sails?”

I nodded yes.

“Which is the biggest?”

Each ship appeared more massive than the last. With our sail and shields in full sight, they had begun to reef their own sails and set their oars to water. We had the wind at our back, and so we had the advantage of speed. They sailed in two formations of three ships. The three at the forefront were about the same length. The three in the rear were different. They were slenderer, longer, and the one in the center was the largest I had ever seen. I did not have time to count, but there must have been at least thirty rowing benches on each side of it. I pointed to the largest among them for Eilif to see.

“That’s him,” Eilif said.

“Who?” I asked.

“Their leader,” Egill replied. “Our only chance to survive this meeting is to bargain with him. Then, at least, his followers may spare us.”

Eilif steered us toward the gap between the first three ships. We passed close to one of them, perhaps an arm’s reach, and its captain stood tall on the prow. He wore a dull green surcoat over a simple brown tunic, and his long dark hair was tied in a single knot behind his head. The look on his face was one of utter surprise, exacerbated by Eilif who gave him a friendly wave with a grin.

“I know that man,” Egill said when he caught sight of the other ship’s captain. “Yes, that is my cousin Bjarni! By the gods, this must be Jarl Thorgísl’s fleet!”

“Friend or foe?” Eilif asked.

“Depends. Thorgísl is a complicated man,” Egill said.

“Will he hear us out?” Eilif asked, and Egill nodded. “Reef the sail!” he barked. Three men sprang from their rowing benches to undo the knots and pull down the sail. They worked with precision and speed, and as the sail lumbered down the mast, the ship slowed. Eilif shouted again, “Dismount shields! Lock oars!”

I heard the booming scuffle of wood grinding on wood as the men drew out the oars and slid them through the oarlocks. They locked them in place, hovering above the water to be plunged in at Eilif’s command. They sat in silence, awaiting the next order from their chieftain.

The enemy ships circled like a hungry pack of wolves. On the prow of their largest vessel stood a man with long black hair that flowed from underneath an iron helmet. He had a long, sharp nose and a maille skirt around his nape. His beard sat on his chest in a single braid held together by two silver rings. Above him stood a magnificent dragonhead with carved scales and a gaping mouth with sharp white fangs and a bright red tongue. The ship rowed to meet ours, and once they were upon us, the man on the prow spoke.

“Greetings, friends,” he declared.

Eilif passed the steering paddle to me once more and ambled to the gunwale to reply. “I am Eilif, son of Harald.”

“I am Thorgísl, son of Bíldr.” He adjusted his footing to stand a little taller as his ship maneuvered to place him in our line of sight. His crew threw hooks over our gunwale and pulled our ship up against theirs. The waves increased in depth and number, which made the ships rock violently back and forth. “Tell me Eilif, son of Harald, where have you come from?”

“We raided some islands on the coast,” Eilif explained.

“Find anything of value?” Thorgísl asked.

“Nothing. The coast here has been raided many times by our kin. We have nothing to show for our raids, if you intended to challenge us for our plunder.”

“That was my intention,” Thorgísl stated. “Do you expect me to believe you have set sail for the North empty-handed?”

“Thorgísl—” Eilif began before he was interrupted.

“Please, call me Thor.”

“Very well, Thor,” Eilif said, choosing each of his words with great care. “My second in command, Egill, says he knows you by reputation, and that you are an honorable and ambitious man.”

The compliment pleased Thor. He smiled with yellow, crooked teeth and said, “I am.”

“If you are a fair man, as Egill has said, then you will see no reason to keep us, and you will allow us to return to our homes in Jutland,” Eilif said.

“Do you think me a fool?” Thor asked. He signaled to his men who approached the gunwale and prepared to board us. “I can clearly see your ship is weighed down in the water. What are you hiding from me, Eilif, son of Harald?”

Eilif looked down at the water below him and sighed.

“That is what I thought,” Thor said. “And I challenge you for it.”

“Wait… wait!” Eilif said. “You have six ships, and many men. We do not have enough silver to share among all of them. Surely you will want to know where we found our wealth to fill your own ships.”

“I am listening,” Thor said.

I looked to Eilif and shook my head. I did not want him to tell Thor about Nominoë. Asa lived among the Celts, and if Thor raided Vannes, it would put her in danger. Eilif whispered to Egill, who whispered back.

“We will take you there,” Eilif said to Thor. “It is a city called Nantes.”

Thor laughed. “Nantes? Our people have never raided a city of that size. You are lying.”

“We are not,” Egill said. “On my honor I swear, we came by our wealth through trade in Nantes. That is what we are—traders, not raiders.”

Thor thought for a moment and disappeared behind his men. When he climbed up onto the gunwale at the prow again, he pointed to the sky and said, “My seer cast the runes and says you speak the truth.”

Eilif’s confidence found him again. “We have traded for many years in the city. We know it well,” he said.

“You know a way in, then?” Thor asked.

Eilif nodded and said, “We do.”

Thor stroked his beard in thought. He looked around at his fleet and considered Eilif’s proposition. He had evidently not planned out where he would take his fleet to raid. I could see the greed in his eyes as he imagined the riches that awaited him in a city as large as Nantes, but I also saw trepidation and uncertainty.

He looked to his men and said, “Do we try it?” The deck of his ship erupted in excited chatter. Once the chatter ceased, he spoke again. “How will we split the plunder?”

“Nantes is so full of riches that we will not need to think of how to split the wealth,” Eilif said. “And it is enough for me to keep what I have on my own ship.”

Thor looked to the clear sky above and took in a deep breath. He raised his hands as if to thank the gods and laughed. “You know the way?” he asked.

Eilif replied, “I do—and I know how to pass the fortified bridge.”