Viking Lost

by Derek Nelsen

  “Not me, Father. I’m your shield man. I would never leave you or my home behind.” Toren glared at his little brother as if he were acting so brave, as if marrying the most beautiful girl in town and inheriting the farm was a martyr’s fate.

  “I wish we’d never heard of that treasure,” said Erik.

  “This was never about you, or that chest. It is because Vidar wants to take the empty throne to show his father what he is capable of. To do that, he needs me gone. He will try to kill me, holmgang or no. The Vikings will never leave here.”

  “Even more reason I will never leave,” said Toren. “There are only three of them. We can protect our village until they leave in the spring—with or without Erik.”

  “There are more than three,” said Magnus. “Even if we don’t join Vidar, our friends already have. Just last month, the smith took on two new apprentices. He didn’t do that to make more nails.”

  Erik eyed his brother. “Orri likes me. He used to tell me that if I joined them that I could be a great Viking. I think with his help I can influence Vidar.”

  Tor shook his head. “They will turn against you and me and anyone else who stands up to them.”

  “How do you know that, father?” asked Erik.

  “Because it already happened! I have had to run from Olaf before, and when I did, my best friends hunted me like dogs after a red stag.” Tor exhaled heavily. “Ragi’s father has made arrangements with Jarl Adar. Apparently, he’s been unifying the Sogn to fend off the Vikings. After the holmgang, no matter the outcome, you are all leaving to get his help. You too, Toren.” Erik hated that he couldn’t laugh in Toren’s dour face. “You must keep this secret or we will all be dead before Erik and Magnus have the chance to see their souls.” He looked at Toren. “That means you can’t tell Anja.” He turned to Magnus. “You can’t tell Ragi.” Then to Erik. “Not even Kiara. I’m not even telling your stepmother until just before the ceremony.”

  “I won’t let you down, father,” said Toren. “We will come back with ships and men and help unite the Sogn.” Toren said it just like all the brave soldiers who’d never swung a sword. He’d never seen what a Viking like Ubbi could do with nothing more than a stick.

  “No.” said Tor. Erik enjoyed watching his brother cower like a corrected pup. “None of you will make the same mistakes I did. After you return, you will sell this farm to Pedar or Jarl Adar and leave Norway. Whether Olaf or Adar is no matter, our gods have set this country on a path to war, and soon there will be no more villages left where men can be free from paying Valhalla’s toll. It is the way of all things.”

  Somehow, witnessing Toren’s fall made this day, which should have been the worst of Erik’s life, a little brighter.

  Toren just stared at his father with an eerie resolve. He was going to lose everything. The news should have broken him, but it didn’t. He almost looked excited. Erik had seen him like that before when the roof on the barn had collapsed from the weight of snow. Erik and his father had cursed the old barn, and the cold. Erik even tried to convince his father to let it go until warmer weather. But not Toren. He just started working out all that needed to be done. Erik liked that look, and, in a way, felt better knowing his big brother was going to be with him on the trip he’d always figured he was destined to take alone.

  Soon, Erik would get his soul and his father would face the giant. And win or lose, he’d be leaving the only home he’d ever known. Toren had the right look. There wasn’t much time.

  Blood and Souls

  Erik looked at the sky to distract himself. It was just after noon on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and although the stars still shone above in a sea of black, the mid-day sun was only offering a taste of its light as it skirted along the edge of the horizon. Erik winced as Magnus let out a loud whimper.

  He did not turn to watch. Instead, he focused on the old owl that seemed to be looking back at him, too. Its head only turned once, toward the distant caw of a raven, then back, before preening the feathers under its wing. Erik’s breathing quickened. It was his turn.

  After seeing others receive their souls every year for as long as he could remember, he knew each step of the ceremony by heart. That’s what they called it—receiving. Like he was to receive a gift, or a warm hug.

  Knowing what was to come did not make it easier. Now that it was his turn, every step seemed excruciatingly precise, and slow, and his heart pounded with fear and excitement like a hammer against an anvil.

  After emerging from the frozen snow for the third time, almost no blood remained on the sharp blade. Old Afi plunged the forearm-length seax back into the blue flames until a design hidden within the blackened iron emerged—its intricate pattern glowed orange as the coals.

  Three times through the fire made the blade ceremonially clean. No one could remember why three times, but no one, especially those that felt its heat, ever forgot.

  Erik looked toward his father, Tor and older brother, Toren, and receiving the nod, he quickly stripped off protective layers of cloak, coat, and shirt. His face grimaced like the others before him as the arctic wind bit him like a ravenous wolf. Goose bumps flew up his arms and down his neck until they covered his naked back and chest, his head snapping reflexively from the shock of the cold.

  After a lifetime of his stepmother’s nagging, never letting him leave the house without heavy constricting clothes to protect him from freezing to death even on the mildest Norwegian spring day, it seemed ironic now that she sanctioned a ceremony that forced boys and girls to strip to their bare backs on the day Winter’s sting seemed to have the most bite.

  For a fleeting moment, Erik pitied the girls also coming of age on this day. The Wind’s invisible blade cut the thoughts of seeing them take off their shirts bitterly from his consciousness. Recently, he hadn’t seemed able to think of anything else, his hyperactive imagination etching crude pictures of the moment in his brain while he slept.

  He always woke up at the moment the girls pulled their undershirts up just above their belly buttons. Although ultimately unsatisfying, this distraction had been a good one. It was the only thing Erik had to counter his fear of the coming blade.

  The girls, he thought, seemed to have no similar distraction. Every time a girl brought up her fear of the knife, one of the boys would repeat an old joke that was only clever to their hormone laden brains, usually something about this whole ritual just being a way for old men to see them with their shirts off. The girl’s response was the more personal attack, often responding with the same old retort, that, if they had to take off their pants, Frost’s bite would starve to death, or something like that.

  All the jokes he had made to Anja about having her chest exposed seemed childish now as the bite of an arctic breeze cut into him. As bad as it was for him to endure exposure to the subzero cold without a shirt, he assumed it must be much more painful for the girls. He actually pitied them.

  Then, his attention found a singular focus. A new shiver clawed its way up his spine as he watched Afi pull the knife’s glowing, orange blade from the fire. Long tongues of blue flame licked at it voraciously, as if afraid it was the last time it would taste its iron. It wasn’t.

  There weren’t many of them this year. For five it was already over, Magnus among them. Erik looked back one last time at the others still in line, standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting their turn. Eleven would see their souls for the first time this year, this day. And all of them would prefer to leave them where they lay, hidden deep inside. First, he noticed Anja’s chest. It was pumping in and out frantically with shallow breaths.

  Forcing his gaze upward, he caught her beautiful eyes, only today they looked wild with anticipation, almost screaming. Next to her he saw her half-brother Ragi, his face frozen in fear and cold, eyes red and tearing. The others blurred. Erik cleared his eyes, the thin layer of water freezing on the back of his hand.

  The elder was saying something, but his words were muted by the fear o
f that first cut. In his head he repeated phrases over and over. “Don’t show fear. It’ll be over soon. Stand strong.” But his thoughts betrayed him, allowing fear and doubt to smash his mantra like a hammer crushing a chunk of ice.

  At first, all he could feel was a surge of heat as he stared into the old man’s cold, blue eyes.

  Don’t look down. Stay strong. Don’t show fear.

  Then, intense heat, intense pressure, intense pain.

  Stay strong. Don’t cry. Owwwch. Owww. Aaaahhhhgg. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  The pain chased the thoughts around and around inside Erik’s head. His eyes welled with tears, but none fell, and he made no sound. Not a whimper. The old man nodded his head, and Erik put his hand up. Then the old man pushed it to his chest, stuck the tip of the hot blade into the wound, and pop, the thing fell into his palm.

  It was over.

  The old man held up the still sizzling blade, before starting the ritual cleaning all over again. Erik looked at the gory ornament in his blood-stained, shivering hand. His own soul ring freshly cut from his chest.

  The elder stabbed the knife into the clean, white snow three times, staining it red with Erik’s blood. Then he carefully laid the knife back into the fire, the flames immediately going to work, purifying the blade, coloring it a glowing orange once again. Somehow, Erik pried his eyes off his ring long enough to glance down the line, a weak attempt to assure his friends they’d be alright. But as he stared back at his soul, he shuddered. Poor saps.

  The old man brought Erik back to himself. Looking him in the eye, he spoke to him—only to him, as was the custom.

  This ring is the tether to your soul,

  Yours and yours alone,

  Neither flesh nor of bone,

  The Maker’s instrument,

  Revealing the world and the heart,

  Never taken, only given,

  Ruined, but not destroyed,

  Ring eternal. Protect it.

  Place no liens against it.

  Play it loud, and play it often,

  May it never be a burden.

  It is precious.

  Like the others before him, Erik did not reply. He was lost in the ring, that thing that only blood and pain and scars could reveal.

  “Aaaauuooww!” Erik howled, as the Elder drove the glowing blade back against the cut, searing the wound it had just made shut. Out of instinct, he slammed a hand against the elder’s arm to push the seax away, but Old Afi was surprisingly strong and had been ready with his other arm firmly around Erik’s back.

  Blood boiled. The wound smoldered and sizzled as fire seared it shut, stopping the flow of blood that had painted a crimson line down his front, even dripping into the bottom of his left boot. The sickly smell of his own burning flesh filled the air, overwhelming Erik’s senses. Not sure if it was the pain or the smell, he felt like he was going to vomit, all pretense of keeping it together during the ceremony about to be spilled all over the elder’s fur-lined boots.

  While Erik struggled with pain and nausea, the elder flung the seax into the fresh snow between his left foot and the next victim’s right. Then old Afi reached down and grabbed a handful of the snow stained red with Erik’s own blood and slapped it onto his chest.

  “Hmmph!” Erik let more pain slip out as the sting of the impact sent a chill up his spine and broke what remained of his self-induced hypnosis.

  He didn’t hear the rest of the ceremony, forgetting all about topless girls, the sound of vomit splashing on the snow, and the smell that followed.

  He barely flinched when he heard the whimpers of fear and yelps of pain escaping from the others’ hardened exteriors as the blade that had haunted his dreams for so long now escorted them into adulthood.

  He’d hear about the details later. His older brother seemed to be enjoying every slice of the ceremony, empathizing for his friends with exaggerated winces and contrived cringes. He would fill them in on all the pitiful and hilarious details before they recovered, that was certain.

  No, for now at least, Erik had lost interest in the ceremonial suffering. He just stood there staring at his new possession. A perfect circle taken from his chest. Too big to be worn on a finger but not big enough to fit on anything else, it would have to reside near where it was taken—on a string hanging close to his heart, the same place his parents and everyone else in the village kept theirs.

  The only purpose this ornament had, that he could see, was that if he held it up close to his eye, his soul could put a frame around the entire world.

  Erik had seen his older brother’s ring a hundred times. He used to catch him staring at it all the time. The affect wore off though, and lately he’d kept it under his shirt like most of the other adults. Now, for the first time, he understood his brother’s earlier obsession.

  Somehow, although seeing it for the first time, he felt like he knew his own ring. It looked like everyone else’s, but he recognized this one. It was his, and he was drawn to it, tethered to it by an unseen force. Looking at it now for the first time, his soul became more perplexing to him. He stared at that empty, peppered white frame and was entranced by what it could mean.

  Why was it there?

  “Here, put your shirt on before Runa pinches a hole in my arm.” It was his father that broke the trance this time. “She’s worried you’ll freeze to death and won’t leave me alone until you’re clothed, so let’s get on with it. That’s right. Now this. Here, take this, too.” After handing him undershirt and overshirt, he gave him a long leather braided loop. “Put this end through your ring and wear it around your neck for safe keeping. It’ll hang near your heart, where we probably should have left it in the first place.” Then Tor handed Erik his rabbit fur-lined long coat. “You can stare at it for the rest of your life, if you want, but for now, do me a favor, and put this on or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Then he tossed a belt around Erik’s waist and began to tie it tight. His father put his powerful hands on Erik’s shoulders and looked at him solemnly.

  “That ring signifies full rights as a man, and responsibilities.” His eyes turned to wet pools, and his left one began to twitch. Then he smiled and put his arm around Erik. “I am proud of you. You have grown into a great young man, and the world is yours, now.”

  Time stopped for Erik as he inhaled his father’s words. They were the highest and most important he’d ever received, from a man he’d nearly worshiped his entire life, a man not prone to showing sentiment toward his own.

  “Now let’s get over to the hall, ja? The smell of this morning’s sacrifices cooking all day has me starving.” Tor put his arm around Erik’s shoulder, and they gathered the rest of the family and headed for the hall.

  Like all others who went through the ceremony, this event changed Erik, and he would spend the rest of his life trying to comprehend what it, and the ring, was all about.

  Getting Some Rest

  “Tor!” Pedar caught him sneaking out of the hall. “Leaving already?”

  Tor looked back to check on his boys. “Do me a favor, and get Vidar as drunk as you can tonight.”

  Pedar seemed confused; then he caught on. “I’ll tell Anja to keep his cup full. Hopefully he’ll sleep through the holmgang tomorrow and everything will go back to normal.”

  “You mean Kiara.”

  “What?” This time Pedar was definitely confused.

  “You said you’d have Anja keep his cup full. I’m not sure Toren would like that too much.”

  Pedar was slow to answer. “I think with the ring ceremony this afternoon and the holmgang tomorrow, I’m a little out of sorts.”

  “Alright, I’ve got some things to take care of; then I’m going to try to get some sleep.” Tor started off again, then stopped. “Do me a favor, Pedar, and keep the boys out of trouble. I couldn’t keep them in tonight, you understand. It being Erik’s ring day and all.”

  Pedar nodded, but he did look out of sorts. “Are you planning to send your boys off to
meet with Jarl Adar?”

  Tor checked over Pedar’s shoulder to ensure no one else could hear. “Do the Vikings know?” He sidled up close to Pedar, who smelled like he’d shampooed his beard with pine soap.

  “No,” said Pedar. “Not from me, anyway.”

  “Who told you?” Tor’s mind raced. If Vidar knew that he was sending his sons off to form alliances, they would be in grave danger.

  Pedar put his hand up, as if it would calm Tor’s pounding heart. That kind of thing always made Tor more agitated. “Ragi saw Magnus coming home with a broken shield. He told me, but no one else,” Pedar assured him. Then he sidled up to Tor as if he was scolding his maid. “How could you plan something like this without including me? I made the deal.”

  “Deal?” Tor stood up straighter. He liked having little Pedar stand up to him about as much as he liked the idea of sending his sons away in midwinter. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.” Pedar puffed–out his chest and tried to inhale his belly. “I have no authority to do anything. But neither do you.” He wiped beads of sweat and nerves from his bald head.

  “Don’t you think that things have changed now?” Tor asked. “Regardless of what happens tomorrow?”

  “If you’re sending your sons, then Ragi’s going, too.” Pedar started explaining. “He will represent my family’s interests.”

  “Pedar,” said Tor, “this isn’t about that.”

  “Oh, come on, Tor,” said Pedar. “This is about choosing our allies. It’s about advantage and power, and I will not be left out of it.” Pedar let his shoulders fall forward again as he focused on Tor’s left eye, which Tor could sense had begun to twitch. Pedar took a deep breath and started again in a calm whisper. “Anyone who joins this village to the jarl will have a lot to gain, and I won’t be left out—for my son’s sake, or yours.” It was Pedar’s eyes that were twitching now.

  “Alright.” Tor took a deep, calming breath. “Toren leads, though. It will be dangerous. None of them have ever traveled so far this time of year. Have Ragi packed and ready to leave as soon as the holmgang is over.”