Crystal clear waters met as waves crashed in the eyes of the two brodur who gazed into the depths of each other’s deep fjords. Shock, slackened jaws, the mist of sea spray all met as their bright blue irises locked.

  “Father is…” Halfdan asked quietly, lips quivering, stray beard hairs wriggling like thin worms entering the earth as the swift winter breeze shook them. “How do you know?”

  “Skuld has spoken to me,” Bjorn answered, peering deep into the eyes of his brodir, it had been said that they were the gateway to the true thoughts of all men and he needed Halfdan to see his. “I have had… a vision. King Aella of Northumbria has murdered our father. We must return home, gather the brodur, gather the jarls, and sail for England.”

  “You are certain?” Halfdan asked, slack jaw and eyes betraying his storm-addled thought-cage.

  Bjorn replied with a nod and Halfdan’s meaty palms dropped helplessly from his shoulders, swinging at his sides, shoulders slumped as he felt the weight of Bjorn’s words like rocks in his chest.

  “You possess mother’s gift?” His blue eyes searched Bjorn’s own, a realisation carving its way into the etches of Halfdan’s face. “Then I will have the ships prepared.”

  Though he wanted to tell them about Nornir’s Weave, he knew that he could not. Inheriting his mother’s visions was far more believable than a quest and skill giving system that only he could see. Who had ever heard of such a thing? It was beyond even the wild imaginations of the skalds. For now at least, he would have to guard this secret power. Even from those he trusted most.

  “What about your new kingdom?” Old Svik asked quietly, hot breath lapping at Bjorn’s frost-numbed ears.

  “I will address the drengir now,” he said sternly.

  Then he was marching back into the ring, seax sliding against sheath as he dropped to one knee over the deceased king and sliced through sinew and bone to remove his head. Blood dripped, sizzling against the cold snow as Bjorn stood tall and raised it to the backdrop of shield thumping and the hejas of his drengir. Even Eystein’s men watched in awe – though they were technically his men now. None daring to speak, to defy, as they gave Bjorn their full attention.

  He raised his hand and the rowdiness calmed, silence ensuing as only the wind could be heard across the blood soak battlefield.

  “Our blades bit more than theirs,” Bjorn said, voice loud and carrying on the wind to the ears of all gathered, “I must tell this truly, here on Gnipafjord.” He gestured to the snowy hill around him and from his position upon it, he could see all the way to the longships, docked at the nearby fjord where they had chased Eystein’s army to reach this, the final destination of Bjorn’s vengeance. “This is a great victory, however, there is more revenge to be had overseas. Let every man who’d like to – lads don’t spare your swords now – become before England, the bane of a foeman. In Lejre my brodur and I will gather our forces for soon we will cross the great whale-road to avenge my father, your king, Ragnar Lodbrok, who the Nornir tell me, has been murdered by a bacraut King named Aella of Northumbria.”

  The air stayed silent, stagnant as breath-mist formed before the mouths of shocked drengir who stared up at their leader.

  Old Svik, approached from behind, the crunch of boots on snow alerting Bjorn to his presence and as he reached him, Svik whispered, “what will we do with this new territory?”

  Bjorn nodded, taking a moment to think it over, then gazed back over at the misted eyes of his drengir, even Eystein’s men held sea-spray on their cheeks at the revelation of Ragnar’s passing, and said: “Old Svik, truest of drengir and my good friend, will claim jarldom over Sweden, ruling on my behalf. Some of you will stay to support my claim and Svik, you will raise an army from the proud drengir of this land and then you will sail my army to Lejre, where all of our allies will meet, and together we will cross the great whale-road. What say you?”

  “Heja!” Svik roared, clenched fist punching the air. “I am honoured, my king. It will be done.”

  Then, a chorus of hejas followed as bleary-eyed drengir gritted their teeth and let their voices form a choir and Bjorn looked towards the longships, moored in the fjord, and saw Halfdan sprinting full pelt towards them, steam misting around his body as he cut a fresh path through the thick snow.

  ***

  “Brodir, you do not have to sit the oar bench,” Halfdan said, hand resting on the tiller of the bear-headed drakkar longship as it cut a foamy path through the frothing water. “You are a king now; it is beneath you.”

  “We all have our talents,” Bjorn said, heaving his oar in time to the beating of a drum, shoulders and arms burning, hands blistering, arse numb from sitting on the wooden chest beneath it. “Yours is navigation, mine is strength, and a good ruler should lead the charge, no?”

  “Have it your way then,” he sighed, casting his eyes towards the bustling port at the edge of the town. After weeks of hard rowing, weathering sea-storms and forgoing sleep to wrestle with twined ropes against Njord’s fury, their destination was finally in sight. “We will dock soon anyway.”

  Bjorn’s ship led two others as they made towards land, three had been left at Gnipafjord, their drengir ordered to aid Old Svik in claiming the land and raising an army for the journey to England. The Nornir’s Weave had commanded Bjorn to gather his allies and he planned to do so, not because Skuld willed it, but because his family’s honour, his honour, demanded retribution.

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  Rage cooled in his blood now, but he could still feel it below the surface, warming his veins, ready to ignite at the slightest want. He would avenge his father, but to do so he would need to heed Skuld’s advice and raise an army – the biggest army the world had ever seen.

  “Oars!” Halfdan shouted and the drengir were threading their oars through the holes, swapping them for spears in the racks and retrieving their shields from the top rail as some were casting ropes onto the dock and guiding the longship onto the jetty.

  “Come,” Bjorn said, dipping into his chest and unfurling his brynja from a seal skin cloak which would protect it from the salt-rust of the sea spray.

  Then he was leaning over and wriggling into the heavy chain shirt, letting its heft hang by his upper thighs before donning his weapons belt tightly around his waist, taking some of the brynja weight from his oar-tired shoulders.

  Leaving the drengir to secure the ship, Bjorn vaulted over the top rail, swaying slightly as his sea-legs grew accustomed to solid ground once more. With Halfdan at his back, he strode firmly across the creaking planks, the dockmaster slapping fist into chest as he passed by. Bjorn flipped him a silver coin and the man grinned a blemished smile, gaps in his yellowed teeth giving way to the abyss of his inner mouth.

  Lejre was a bustling port town now, wooden steadings lining its shore as busy freedmen and women gutted fish, sold wares and thumped hammers against iron in smithies. However, when Bjorn’s father had first claimed dominion over it, Lejre was little more than a small fishing village. The town exemplified his father’s greatness, a shadow he was not content to stay in.

  “It seems trade is booming,” Bjorn remarked as the brodur marched through the mud, splashing boots in thin puddles as they made for the longhouse.

  “Ivar has done well in our absence,” Halfdan replied. “How long has it been now, two winters?”

  “Three.”

  “And yet, despite our victories, we return with ill tidings. Mother will be…” Halfdan trailed off as the two approached the longhouse. Two stalwart guards stood like statues before the entrance to the elaborately carved steading: rectangular with crossed beams giving way to a tall, curved roof. The longhouse took pride of place in Lejre, overlooking the town and its vast populous of freedmen, women and thralls.

  Stamping spears into the wooden floor with a crack, the drengir moved as one and opened the doors as Bjorn and Halfdan stepped through without stopping. Fire-smoke spilled out in thick, grey plums which spiralled towards Asgard and stung Bjorn’s eyes with a familiar heat.

  Inside, a long table stretched the length of the longhouse, empty apart from jugs of ale and mead and Bjorn pulled his drinking horn from his belt and dipped it into an ale barrel as he strode past. Pressing the horn to his lips, he drank deeply, the bubbles popping delightfully against his tongue, froth clinging to his beard as he drained the horn and replaced it on his belt. Then he was striding towards the throne, a worried, hard-eyed shieldmaiden sitting upon it.

  “Well met,” she said, lips straight, elaborately braided blonde hair hanging like drapes over each shoulder. Grey, calculating eyes taking in the visage of her sons. “It thaws my heart to have you warm our home once more Bjorn, Halfdan.”

  “Mother,” Halfdan said warmly, smiling sadly up at her, arms twitching as he controlled the urge to embrace the Queen of Lejre. Even familial bonds must make way for protocol in such situations.

  “Forgive us for the unannounced intrusion, mother,” Bjorn said, meeting her eyes which glimmered, a dark patch hanging behind her crow-stepped skin. “But we bring ill tidings.”

  Eyes narrowing, frown lines deepening, Aslaug looked at her son as a glimmer of recognition darkened her grey irises.

  “You have also had the dream?” She asked.

  “Yes,” he lied, wary of revealing the true nature of the Nornir’s Weave, “father is dead.”

  She stared at them, eyes wide and jaw ever-so-slightly agape as her thought-cage churned. Then she was rising from her seat and closing the distance between them, taking both of her sons in her arms, hands clenching the braids at the napes of their necks as she pulled them close and they in return embraced her.

  “Bjorn, you have awakened to my gift, the first of Ragnar’s bairns to claim it,” she whispered, throat catching as her husband’s name passed her tender lips. Though she sounded uncertain, something in her voice portrayed the feeling that it was a gift Bjorn should not have inherited.

  “Yes, it seems that Skuld favours me as well, mother.” As he squeezed her frame with his free arm, he felt his heart lurch, throat sticking as he spoke, eyes stinging with more than just the fire-smoke. “Skuld has told me of this great loss, asked me to avenge him. I am to gather our allies here and cross the whale-road. We must call my brodur home, gather the jarls and any Norsemen who will aid us in this.”

  “We will my son,” she said voice quivering as the three of them continued to embrace. “All the kingdoms of the North Sea will grieve at the loss of your battle-famed father. Though it may take some time. Ivar, Sigurd and Ubba have sailed to Norway to make an ally of Harald Bluetooth. I will send messengers, but it will take time to reach them and draw them home.”

  “Old Svik is gathering our forces in Sweden,” Halfdan said. “We slew King Eystein, Bjorn is now their king. Though I know not how many drengir he will muster after we sent so many to walk the soul-road.”

  “This is great news,” Aslaug said and Bjorn felt her lips form a twisted, grieving smile into his shoulder, her breath forming wet condensation on his lower neck which slicked his skin, irritating the area where brynja met skin. “My second son a king, our clan is only missing Norway now and we would rule all of the North Sea, a dynasty for the saga tales.”

  Eventually the three disentangled themselves from one another and sat long into the night as Bjorn and Halfdan regaled their mother with battle-tales. Thralls served them meat, filled their cups, and by rights the homecoming should have seen the hall filled with freedmen and women, drengir and thralls as they feasted and celebrated their victory. But Bjorn was in no mood for celebration, there was much to do and feasting could wait.

  At some point Midgard stopped spinning, despite Bjorn’s head feeling the oceans waves behind his eyes, and a new message appeared before his wavering eyes, runes carved into the air.

  New Quest:

  Class Selection

  Now that you have completed the tutorial quest, it is time to choose your class. Doing so will unlock your path to skill-based power and gift you the ability to gain levels, aiding you in the growth of your battle-fame.

  Objectives:

  Journey to the galdrwoman 0/1

  Rewards:

  Unlock your class

  With all that I have learned in recent days, I had almost forgotten about this class quest, Bjorn thought. I wonder why it took so long to appear?