No Cheers at the Dock
The Sea Raven touched Ravenfjord without a victory cry. Einar, Kjell, and Orm lifted the dead ashore one by one. Salt water dripped from their cloaks. Children who ran toward the ship expecting silver were called back by their mothers.
Sigurd knelt beside his son Hakon. Ragna seized Arnor by the front of his tunic and pressed her forehead against his. “You took your damned time.”
In the hall, Jarl Eirik heard how every man died. He asked whether Ulf had stood, whether Leif had stood, and whether Hakon had stood. When the survivors answered, he declared that no shame rested beneath his roof.
The Funeral Fires
Ravenfjord gathered at the burial mound. Hallvard gave Torsten the iron helmet he had worn as a young man. Rolf Stonehand warned Bjorn that survival did not prove the gods loved him more than the dead. Then he embraced his old friend.
Yrsa placed an arrow across Ulf's chest and remembered the patient brother who had taught her to shoot. Ketil One-Hand gave Leif a final arm-ring and admitted that the law had once been wrong to call him property. Sigurd spoke the name his son had wanted men to remember: Hakon Sea-Wolf.
Three columns of smoke rose above Ravenfjord and drifted over the water. That night Eirik raised his horn first to the fallen, then to the living.
The Reader
The morning after the feast, Hallvard Rune-Eye spread Aldwin's writings across a table. He recognized Christian letters, important seals, and a map showing a road inland. He could not read them. He knew a man who could.
Oswin was an educated English monk held as a thrall by Hrolf Ketilsson. Hallvard sent Arnor, Bjorn, Torsten, Finn, Hrafn, and Ivar to find him. The road carried them through pine and birch woods, past farms, sheep, charcoal burners, and travelers. At a shallow ford Finn caught his tunic on the rocks and tore it before the water finally released him.
Hrolf's Farm
Late that afternoon the prosperous farm appeared ahead, visibly broken. A pasture fence lay down. A wagon had been overturned. The storehouse door hung from one hinge, and dried blood darkened the yard.
Hrolf, Eydis, Freydis, and Hrolf's injured son survived. Six outlaws led by Aslak Red-Hand had attacked three nights earlier. They stole silver, weapons, cattle, and sheep. They took Oswin alive. Edvin, another thrall, disappeared after the raid.
The companions stayed through the night, repairing fences and tending the wounded. Hrolf's request was simple: “Bring him home.”
The Trail North
At dawn they followed the confused trail of men, livestock, and a captive. The cattle made tracking easy at first. Farther north, the raiders had built a temporary enclosure, abandoned the cattle, and slaughtered sheep for food. Beyond it, only human footprints continued into the wooded hills.
A cairn beside the trail concealed the body of an outlaw. A wound taken at Hrolf's farm had killed him. Six fighting men had made the attack. Five remained.
At dusk the crew found their camp and watched from the trees. Aslak sat with four surviving outlaws. Oswin was unarmed. Edvin carried a weapon, but held himself apart from the others. The crew waited for darkness.
Aslak's Camp
Ivar and Arnor crept forward. Ivar fixed a rope low between the trees and drove sharpened spikes where a running man would fall. Then he rigged a scraping noise beyond the fire, something moving in the dark where no man should have been.
Brand went to investigate. He struck the hidden line and fell face-first. A spike drove through his eye. The camp erupted.
Arnor closed on Aslak and cut him badly. Ivar cast a javelin and missed. Torsten called holy force into his weapon. Bjorn seized Aslak and locked him in a crushing grapple while the remaining men searched for a fight they could still win.
Oswin and Edvin backed away. They wanted no part in the killing.
Three outlaws called for a stop. Finn's voice carried over the confusion, holding their attention long enough for weapons to lower. Bruised and trapped in Bjorn's arms, Aslak demanded to know what the strangers wanted.
“Oswin.”
Aslak called him Hrolf's Englishman. Oswin answered, “No man's.” Aslak had already forced him to translate the parchment for which the raid had been undertaken. He no longer needed a reader.
“Take him if he'll go. I don't put chains on free men.”
Finn then recognized one of the surviving outlaws as a murderer. Arnor killed the man before the truce could become safety. The two remaining bandits fled into the trees.
The Price of Freedom
Edvin persuaded the crew to let him choose his own road. He did not return with them. Oswin was equally clear: he would read Aldwin's documents, but he would not return to Hrolf as property.
Back at the farm, Hrolf insisted upon his rights. The crew bargained until approximately seventy-five silver bought Oswin's legal freedom. They gave Oswin ten silver of his own and told Hrolf that the Englishman now worked for them.
Oswin returned to Ravenfjord as a paid man rather than a recovered possession.
The Man Who Would Not Sleep
During the two weeks in which the Sea Raven stood ashore for repairs, another story reached Ravenfjord. A small boat had been found with two dead men and one survivor, Egil Arnfinnsson.
Egil said bad weather drove the three men to shelter beside a skerry. In a hidden chamber they found old bones, carvings of boats and waves, and a polished whalebone figure of a woman. After they left, one companion walked silently into the sea. The other heard a woman singing beneath the hull, fought Egil, and followed the first man overboard.
Egil brought the carving home. He would not sleep because every time his eyes closed, he saw the sea from beneath the water. The crew heard his warning and decided the distant skerry was not worth another voyage. They did not yet understand that the danger had already come to Ravenfjord.