by Cody W Urban
Nicholas thought of these things as he lay bedridden for days until his puncture wound could mend. He knew deep down that this band of fighters wasn’t truly his type of people. What was he doing raiding Imperial settlements? Nicholas tired of contradicting himself and desperately hoped that the river he was riding would take him to a place where all this made sense. When he was rested and healed, he figured he would travel with this band a bit longer and hope to glean what knowledge and skills from them that Kenalfon never offered.
The crew of The Dashing Dancer was overjoyed to see Nicholas up and about again, and even Snorre made his days far less miserable. In fact, Nicholas felt he could further bridge the gap between the two by complimenting Snorre’s fighting prowess and telling him how honored he would be if Snorre instructed Nicholas in combat. Snorre went for the offer gladly.
Although, when Nicholas had geared up, meeting Snorre, Ranveig, and Tryggr in the fields near Jarrow, a regular town on the isle of Britannia they retired to often, he wore his bow and quiver. It hadn’t yet occurred to Nicholas that he hadn’t seen another archer in the whole gang. “Nary a Norseman ought to use a bow ‘less he be without option. ‘Tis the honorable way to slay a man within the length of your blade!” With that, Snorre swung his axe and halted it mid-air, inches from Nicholas’s trimmed beard.
“Behold!” Ranveig shouted as she charged with her sword and she and Snorre had a spectacular skirmish. He could only liken it to the imagined skirmish if Lysander were to fight his mirror image. Except these two had vastly different styles, but they both were wonderfully skilled in their techniques. The two ended in a stalemate, which annoyed Snorre.
“No ordinary lass are ye, Ranveig,” he grunted. “Be it I went easy on ye, ye held your ground. Not bad at all.” Ranveig huffed playfully, confident enough with herself not to bother. Snorre then tossed Nicholas a wooden sword and then picked one up himself. “For now, we shall start with these.”
It felt as though much of the day was spent with Nicholas swinging his blade, holding his ground against Snorre, and just when he thought he may have had a shot of besting him, he was flat on his back. “No, no. Use your head, lad. Take a strong stance, firm as a boulder, unshakable as the mountain. Be alert and draw upon emotion.”
“I have been taught otherwise,” Nicholas said as he rose up, tired, but persistent. “To concentrate, release emotions, and focus on the goal.”
“Aye, right,” Snorre said with a cough. “That may work for some; for me it’s like opening a floodgate of aggression to reach that goal, with focus! Try using what that other fellow taught ye, and this. What drives ye? What wakes ye up at night? What dark demons have ye faced and never conquered?”
This was all too easy to manifest. Softly and sternly, Nicholas took his stance and said, “I am ready.”
Nicholas waited for Snorre to move and focused so hard he perceived his opponent’s motions slower than reality. Then he strategized in an instant, and opened his floodgate. He blocked Snorre’s attacks, raising his arm, and then punched him square in the chest. Snorre buckled back, dropping his arms. Nicholas swung hard, knocking the wooden sword from Snorre’s hands, and then he dropped and kicked his leg. He then caught Snorre behind the knee with his ankle and with a swift jerk. Snorre was now flat on his back.
Snorre took a few moments to retrieve the wind knocked from him. “Aye, well done lad,” Snorre heaved. It was fortunate for Nicholas that the two were becoming friends. Had he done this a month ago, he’d probably be treading water in the middle of the Northern Ocean.
They stayed in Jarrow for several weeks of little activity save for his training. All the while, Hákon was continuously in deliberation with the captain of another knarr who believed he had a prime vantage on the coastline east of Eboracum, a prominent post of the Roman army. The other captain departed before Hákon, but they had planned a rendezvous for a grand assault. When they set sail, the knarr caught a favorable wind, and though the boat rocked hard upon the waves, Nicholas was game for a skirmish. Somehow, he found a way to synthesize the Elvish concentration of archery with barbarian brutality in hand-to-hand, blade-to-blade combat. Now he was not only fighting the up and down shifting of the knarr, he took on Tryggr, Ranveig, and Snorre all at once.
Nicholas even tapped into the inner power he found when he’d administer healing, convincing himself he fights to heal the world of the darkness that poisons it. Adding that with clear objective focus and a dash of emotional aggression, his wooden sword smashed through theirs and he knocked them all down swiftly. He stepped toward becoming a master.
“I say,” Ranveig said, gasping for air after having it knocked out of her. “The boy becomes a man. Ye found your driving force, Nicholas.”
Nicholas snapped out of his trance-like focus and helped her to her feet. Pete watched with wonder; growing ever amazed with the man who had risked his life for his own sake. Tryggr hopped up and offered a hand to Snorre who only slapped it away with a grunt. He had never figured his pupil would turn so powerful in so little time.
“And you? What fuels you?” he asked Ranveig as soon as she was back on her feet.
She paused a moment and said “The army that took the life of my husband!” while launching a surprise attack that swept Nicholas to the deck with a few strokes of her broken wooden stick. Now she helped him up.
“Ye fight for revenge?” Nicholas asked.
She turned her back to him, always the enigma, and replied, “Aye, and ‘tis a thirst that can never be quenched. Not ever.” She tossed the stick aside and walked away.
Nicholas turned to Tryggr who stood just to his side, and said, “I hope I didn’t offend her.”
“Nay,” he replied. “She has always been like that. Ranveig was Hákon’s brother’s wife.”
This information made a lot of sense to Nicholas. “I see.”
“The Romans obliterated his ship, and all he was doing was trading goods to the people of Hispania. Hákon seldom travels that far south, though he thirsts for revenge as much as she. He’s the captain, yet he lets her have her way quite a bit. She should be married to him, his brotherly duty to tend to his fallen brother’s widow. She may wed him one day, but he is patient. I think they, like most people, wait in hope for a day when the bitterness of the serpent’s bite, the serpent of grief and sorrow, ceases to sting.”
He was singing Nicholas’s song.
7
Rejoiced much in mind…
In tempest, storm and wind.
After spending a good deal of time traveling among the northern towns, hoping that they had blended into obscurity in the minds of the Roman navy, The Dashing Dancer set a course south toward Eboracum along the eastern coast of Britannia. Nicholas, having just forced down his morning supply of gruel, made his way toward the bow having noticed the majority of the crew were standing slack-jawed at a sight on the southern horizon. Billowing dark smoke rose in a high plume straight along the course they had plotted.
“What is that, Captain?” Nicholas asked.
“Not a sight my eyes ever wished to behold, my friend,” Hákon replied gravely. “Our comrades aboard The Dusk Tracker were to rendezvous with us just outside of that cove.”
All at once, the crew began to gasp and murmur amongst each other as the sails of Roman vessels poked just above the horizon with the rising black smoke behind them. “Come about! We head northeast!” Hákon shouted.
“Captain, ‘tis an unfavorable wind in that direction!” Snorre informed the Captain.
“To the oars! Make haste, the lot of you!”
The men plopped down quickly upon cross thwarts, oars in hand and thrust them through rowlocks, and began to strike the paddles against the salty waves. Snorre took to the drum and banged away at a steady fast-paced rhythm at which everyone heaved to and fro in unison with all the strength they had. Hours went by until the wind shifted only enough to fill their canvas and guide them at full speed due east, and the Roman vessels, now three in all, we
re gaining in their pursuit.
After half a day, the men were ready to pass out from exhaustion of constant rowing, but the threat against their lives was just strong enough encouragement to pump their arms forward and back. “Come on lads! Row with every muscle ye own!” Hákon hollered.
Just then, a tremendous splash of steam sprayed up on their starboard side. Then another splashed on their port. As everyone looked back to determine what was happening, Snorre shouted, “Heads straight! You cannot row forward with your eyes on your rear!”
“What was that?” Tryggr asked a thwart ahead of Nicholas.
“They have a catapult mounted on their deck and they are vaulting heavy fireballs upon us,” Nicholas explained. “One hit upon our timber ship is sure to doom us.”
It was then that Nicholas noticed that they were traveling just southwest of a distant storm of brewing dark clouds and flashes of lightning. He felt as though there was danger all about him and although his limbs were growing thoroughly fatigued, his awareness of his peril kept them moving continuously.
After nearly another hour, the men slowed their pace because their muscles throbbed severely, when all of a sudden a chunk of the stern was obliterated from a Roman fireball. Nicholas looked back and found Pete and Ranveig working to put out the flames and then felt the boat tilt heavily to the port side, next all he saw ahead of him was the dark gray clouds.
“That tempest they dare not enter!” Hákon shouted.
“But, do we dare enter?” Ranveig asked in protest.
“Aye, what hope have we?” Hákon retorted. “By the time the sun is set, they will be boarding us if their catapults do not finish us off afore that. No, the storm shall give us cover and the rain shall put out our smoldering deck.”
It wasn’t long, for the winds shifted to a vacuum pulling all things toward the storm, until the knarr bobbed through torrential waves and the rain fell like arrows upon the crew. Most everyone took a break to nurse their sore arms and Nicholas spied the Roman ships were now shrinking, silhouetted by the setting sun. But, though he had adapted to ocean life, he turned instantly nauseous watching the horizon rise and fall rapidly.
“Sorry, lads,” Hákon said compassionately, yet loud enough to overcome the howling wind, crashing waves, and striking rain. “To the oars once more! We need to battle these waves!”
“Move it, you dogs!” Snorre bellowed. “Valhalla awaits warriors felled in combat, not running to save your hides! Let not these waves overcome you!”
The crew of The Dashing Dancer worked in shifts to spare the strength and momentary respite to those whom held the heaviest burden. Several took a few minutes’ break to eat some stale soggy bread and drink a hefty draught of stout lager to rejuvenate before swapping out with the other oarsmen to go back to fighting the storm and continuing to plow through. Nicholas admired his fellow rowing sailors in their diligence and felt a stronger bond was made that night. As they traveled at the mercy of Poseidon, often just a hair from capsizing, all had to work in unison and carry their share.
Nicholas shut his mind off and let his arms keep working, shutting his eyes to keep the raindrops from filling them, trying not to notice his throbbing muscles, especially sore where the arrow had pierced him, and it worked to pass the time. Moving his arms in the same repetitious motion for hours on end made it easy to let them continue on their own while he focused on other things. Missing home, day dreaming about Nysa, wishing against hopes of the perfect reality: life with her in the land of Elves. Still the rocking boat and downpour kept him intermittently coming back to reality. It actually came before he knew it that the winds died, the rain turned to a drizzle, the waves became tolerable, and in the far distance along a foreign shore small lights twinkled.
“Rest, weary men!” Hákon announced emphatically. “Ye have done me proud; the finest crew a captain could pray for. See, just yonder, we have made it.”
“To where?” Nicholas asked.
“My home!”
Chapter Seven
Deck the Halls
Follow me in merry measure,
While I tell of Yuletide treasure.
After The Dashing Dancer berthed at the wharf of the town of Kaupang in the northern lands of Scandinavia, the crew fell fast asleep, though the sun had dawned an hour before. They slept hard the entirety of the day to recuperate from such a strenuous journey and it wasn’t until that evening when Tryggr roused Nicholas. First Nicholas fed Sleipnir, who had quite an uncomfortable night traversing the stormy ocean. Then he let Juno off leash to walk beside him as Tryggr guided him from the knarr. He took him all about the town, saving the best attraction for last: their mead-hall, named The Golden Fawn.
As they entered, Nicholas saw some intriguingly familiar sights: holly boughs decorated the walls and the overhead beams. An evergreen tree stood inside and some young girls dressed it in tinsel. “I do not believe my eyes,” Nicholas gasped in wondrous delight.
“I know, putting a tree indoors does seem a trifle peculiar,” Tryggr began when Nicholas interjected.
“Nay, ‘tis the fact you decorate it so.”
“It is nearly time for the Yule, it is-“
“A merry celebration at winter,” Nicholas said, brushing his fingertips along the holly, growing homesick for Mid Alfheim. “To commemorate the night Christ was-“
“Who?”
“Is this not a festival called the Yule?”
“The Yule is what we call it,” he replied, curious. “How do ye know of it? ‘Tis a celebration we have only up north and it has only been generating popularity for the past few generations.”
“I am sorry to tell you, my friend,” Nicholas said with a laugh, feeling that sense one gets when he knows a secret others suspect he shouldn’t know. “The Elves taught me the Yule. They celebrate to honor the night that God came to Earth.”
“I don’t know about that, Nicholas,” he said. “It is about the winter and how food turns scarce. Odin leads a hunting party from the great halls of Valhalla and we do likewise here, and toast one another in a merry festival to act as our prayer that this winter should come to pass and Spring shall beckon forth a bountiful crop the next time it arrives.”
Nicholas tried not to let the knowledge he had conflict with what his friend was telling him. These were people of another religion, and while he was on shaky grounds regarding his own faith, he wasn’t bound for proselytizing just yet. The Elves surely instigated this festival among these northern people, and it was a start for them to incorporate the practices within their own religious beliefs. Nicholas figured he would again go along with whatever was to happen. He was in an unfamiliar town and was going to enjoy the festivities and some time to relax.
2
Sing we joyous, all together,
Heedless of the wind and weather.
And relax Nicholas did. He spent a good deal of time exploring the forests around Kaupang, walking with Juno and Sleipnir; Pete never far behind. He took the time to tell Pete more of his past and the land of Lycia, trying to connect with the lad and slowly develop a sense of freedom and autonomy. “What do you wait for, Master?” Pete asked him.
“I have asked you time and time again to refrain from calling me such,” Nicholas replied. Pete, in his silent way, gave him a look to say he heard, understood, and yet didn’t agree. His quirked brow also told Nicholas he was awaiting an answer. “Well, what is it?” Nicholas asked in a huff.
“That is what I am asking you,” he said, climbing a rock as Nicholas strolled along.
“I do not know what you mean.”
Pete jumped from the rock, which spooked Juno. She sprinted away and then barked and jumped onto Pete. The two wrestled and played; it was Pete’s way of avoiding Nicholas while still giving him attention. “Ye always mention tidbits of your past, and I see you when ye think, though I know not what ye think.”
“I am not following,” Nicholas replied.
“Ye seem as though you wait for something. Lik
e I am waiting for my brother to come back to me. Like I was waiting for you, for the one who would change my life.”
Nicholas had an aversion to being this lad’s savior. He knew he rescued him and wanted the tale to be left at that. Anything further required a long-term responsibility that he felt unworthy and unqualified for. “Let us head back,” Nicholas said. “I am not waiting.”
He spent the rest of the week that led up to the Yule carving little trinkets and such, thinking it was part of the festival. With great speed and skill, and using Juno and Sleipnir as inspirations, he carved a great deal of little wood foxes and reindeers. All the labors easily kept his mind off his burdens; Pete was right, he was waiting for something. He didn’t know what it was, but now living among the Norse he was little different from when he spent his time among the Elves putting off the terrible feat of the voyage home to face Nysa.
During this time, Hákon and others had been spreading the grave news of those fallen on The Dusk Tracker and others fallen battling the Roman Empire. Nicholas, one day, spied Ranveig kneel before a wooden stake in a graveyard. It was the only time he had ever seen her cry. He knew her tears belonged to her fallen husband and for him alone. As much as he wanted to be at her side for support and sympathy, he knew she was the type for whom grieving was best done solo.
And after a week’s preparation, the mourning and sadness was to pass. Nicholas even put aside his lamenting thoughts of Nysa’s happy life with her wealthy backstabber. It was the Yule; a festival of merriment, a gay celebration, certainly not an occasion for tears.