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23- The beginning of a new era Part I
🕑 Added 2025-07-05 13:49:38 +0000 UTC"So I ask you, Bjorn Ragnarsson," Haraldson's voice was a force of nature in itself, even though he was a little bit old. "Prove your divine favor! Or face the worst punishment for lying to your people. Blood eagle."
A collective intake of breath rippled through the crowd. The words alone were an act of violence. The blood eagle was a ghost story told to frighten children, a nightmare whispered by warriors in the darkest hours of winter.
Bjorn's eyes flickered to met the Earl's gaze, unflinching.
"You demand proof of divine favor?" His voice carried a clear quality that cut through the wind. He didn't wait for an answer. With a deliberate slowness, he reached for the hem of his woolen tunic. He pulled it over his head, baring his torso to the frigid air. Goosebumps rose on his skin, but no one was looking at the cold. All eyes were fixed on the not new mark. But for some of them, they only heard about it, and it's the first time seeing it.
A murmur of awe and confusion swept through the onlookers. Many nodded, their skepticism warring with the undeniable evidence before them.
Bjorn's arm swept out, gesturing towards the handful of men who stood apart, their faces grim and loyal. Floki, his eyes wide with a manic intensity; Torstein, Arne And Kauko, solid and dependable; Leif, his brow furrowed with the memory of the sea's fury.
"Ask them," Bjorn's voice rose, filled with the fire of conviction. "They saw what happened in the west. A storm that wasn't a storm. It howled with the voice of a god and tore the sea apart. The thunder... it was the beat of a hammer. And the blade of lightning that struck our mast... it struck me." He jabbed a finger at the mark on his chest. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't pray for it. But I survived something that should have turned me to ash and scattered me on the waves. I carry this mark, not by my choice, but by the will of the gods!"
Haraldson let the boy's passionate declaration hang in the air, a slow, deliberate nod his only response. He stepped forward, his movements measured, his voice dropping from a roar to a calm, reasonable tone that was somehow more menacing.
"Isn't it a curious thing?" he began, his eyes scanning the crowd, making each person feel as though he spoke to them alone. "The only witnesses to this miracle were the very men who defied my orders, who sailed with you into forbidden waters. How convenient that their testimony aligns so perfectly with your ambition." He paused, letting the poison of doubt seep into the minds of his people. "And yes, we see the mark. No one denies it is there."
He turned his back on Bjorn, a calculated insult, and began to pace. "But listen to his own words. 'Something no man should survive.' This statement, more than any mark, should give us pause."
Haraldson clasped his hands behind his back, adopting the posture of a wise elder guiding his flock. "I have lived longer than most here. I have seen warriors branded by hot iron in punishment, scarred by the claws of bears. I have seen runes carved into skin as offerings. But this?" He gestured vaguely in Bjorn's direction. "The gods do not brand men like cattle. It is not their way. But tricksters? Witches? Those who walk the shadowed paths can conjure signs to fool the weak-minded and the desperate."
A ripple of unease spread through the crowd. They were a people who believed in signs, but also in deceit. Haraldson was playing on a deeper fear: the fear of being made a fool.
"If we treat every unexplained thing as sacred," the Earl's voice grew harder, "then we walk a path to chaos! What stops the next madman, his mind broken by fever, from claiming the same divine touch? Today it is Bjorn Ragnarsson. Tomorrow, a dozen others, each with a story more fantastic than the last, until the law of the Jarl is replaced by the ravings of every dreamer and liar who seeks power!"
This struck a chord. The nods were more certain now. They were a people of law, of order. Chaos was the enemy.
"This is not about Bjorn," Haraldson said, his tone softening, turning the knife with surgical precision. "He is brave. I do not doubt his strength, or the pain he has endured. But strength and pain are not proof of divine favor. They are simply the price of being a man."
Bjorn, who had been listening with growing fury, finally spoke, his voice tight. "So we ignore the gods when they speak? Simply because their language does not fit your laws?"
Haraldson didn't even turn around. "No," he said, his voice carrying to the farthest listener. "We respect the gods by not presuming to speak for them." He let the words sink in, a profound piece of wisdom. Then, slowly, he turned to face Bjorn. "And if they had truly chosen you, Young Bjorn, they would not need you to convince us."
The world seemed to fall silent. Bjorn opened his mouth, but no words came. The weight of a hundred pairs of uncertain eyes pressed down on him. The fire of conviction in his gut was being smothered by the cold doubt. For the first time since his birth, this was the first time he faced a challenge like this.
Nearby, Ragnar shifted just a half-step, but his hand was already on the axe at his belt. Lagertha moved with him, silent and sharp-eyed, ready to close the distance to Bjorn. Floki didn’t blink, his fingers twitching near the double axe tucked beneath his cloak. Rollo looked like a storm about to break, one word away from tearing through steel and flesh. And behind them, every man who had crossed the western sea with Ragnar and Bjorn was ready. Not one flinched.
Haraldson's face was a mask of grim sympathy. "It is not treason to survive, Bjorn Ragnarsson," he said, his voice a low, final nail in the coffin. "But it is a dangerous folly to mistake survival for destiny."
A collective gasp. The Earl hadn't just questioned the sign; he had redefined it. He had turned Bjorn's miracle into a cautionary tale.
Bjorn's mind raced. He had underestimated the old wolf. Haraldson hadn't fought him with swords, but with words, and he had been disarmed, cornered, and defeated. Pissed at himself, a surge of pure, defiant rage burned away the confusion.
"I didn't ask to survive," he said, his voice low and guttural. "But I did. And maybe that is the proof."
In one fluid motion, he unhooked his axe from his belt. And the entire fields tightens.
All 30 bodyguards posted throughout the crowd subtly begin shifting forward, converging on Ragnar's group, hands on hilts, waiting for a command.
Some even start moving to flank Ragnar's family, expecting violence.
Haraldson’s guards tensed instantly. Hrafn’s hand went to his sword; Torvald loosened his shield from his back. For a heartbeat, they braced for a suicidal charge. Hrafn met Bjorn’s eyes and gave the slightest shake of his head. A quiet, wordless message: Don’t be a fool.
Gasps ripple through the freefolk, and many take an unconscious step backward, fearing a sudden skirmish.
Some mothers clutch children. Elders go quiet.
"He's going to fight!"
"They'll kill them all…"
"Madness…"
Lagertha and Ragnar move subtly between Bjorn and the nearest guard.
Haraldson doesn't speak or order the attack immediately, he knows the value of public perception. If Bjorn lunges, Haraldson gets to kill him cleanly and justifiably.
Instead, Bjorn hurled the axe not at the Earl, but at the ground before him. It thudded into the hard-packed earth, the handle quivering, a stark challenge laid bare.
He turned his back on the Earl, his gaze sweeping across the crowd, meeting the eyes of man after man, woman after woman, forcing them to see him not as a symbol, but as a person. Then he turned back to Haraldson.
"If I'm lying," Bjorn said with his voice rough, "if this mark means nothing... if I’ve gone mad, then let the gods end it here. Not with my axe. Not with my father’s blade. But with his." He pointed a finger directly at Earl Haraldson.
"Let your sword be the judge. If I am false, then my death at your hand is not murder; it is justice. No one will question it, and no one will seek vengeance. That is a fair wager, is it not?"
The logic was simple, and utterly undeniable. A wave of murmurs, this time of tense approval, passed through the crowd. This was the Viking way. A direct challenge, sealed with the promise of one's own life.
"You said this isn't about power," Bjorn pressed, his voice dropping but losing none of its intensity. "That it is about truth. Then let your sword be the one to speak it."
Haraldson narrowed his eyes, uncertain. Bjorn’s calm unsettled him. He didn’t understand what the boy was doing, and that alone was a threat.
Torvald leaned in close, his voice barely more than breath. "My lord... don’t give him what he wants. It smells like a trap."
Hrafn said nothing. He just watched Bjorn, his expression unreadable, curious, maybe even wary.
Haraldson didn’t turn his head. His reply was quiet, measured. "It’s not a trap."
"He has nothing left. He’s gambling.
With a finality, Haraldson stepped forward. Slowly drew his sword. The blade was a magnificent piece of work, its steel dark and oiled, its edges honed to a razor sharpness. But he did not point it at Bjorn. He held it out, hilt-first, to the Lawspeaker, Jorund Rekk.
"Let the law witness this," Haraldson declared, his voice strained. "The boy asks for my blade. He may have it. And he may have all that comes with it."
The Lawspeaker nodded gravely and took a ceremonial step back.
Haraldson turned to Bjorn, offering him the sword. There was no respect in the gesture, only a seething contempt. He leaned in, his voice a whisper for Bjorn's ears alone.
"You die with it, or you damn yourself with it. Choose quickly."
Bjorn's hand closed around the cold, worn leather of the hilt. He felt the weight of it, the history of it, the deaths it had delivered. The air grew still. The wind itself seemed to be holding its breath.
He raised the blade so all could see. "Very well," he announced. "If I lie, if the gods did not mark me, if what I carry is false, then this blade will finish what the storm could not."
He looked at the sword, a long, strange moment of communion. He lowered his head, his eyes shutting. "All of it… here," he whispered to himself, a prayer or a command.
And the world changed.
The wind died completely. An unnatural stillness fell over the clearing, so deep that the frantic beat of a hundred hearts was almost audible.
His fingers tremble. A subtle glow pulses beneath the skin of his chest, a faint network of lines, like molten silver, The lines converge toward his heart.
The glow focuses inward. His skin along the ribcage tenses, shifts slightly, reinforcing itself, almost hardening, but only in one spot.
His grip tightens around the sword hilt.
He shakenly exhales once.
Then, with a guttural roar that was part agony, part ecstasy, he drove the point of Haraldson's sword into his own chest.
A collective scream tore through the clearing. Women shrieked and turned away, men stumbled back in shock, some in awe. The sound was sickeningly real, a heavy, wet crunch of steel parting muscle and grating against bone. Blood, shockingly red, welled up instantly, spilling down the blade and onto Bjorn's skin.
He gasped, his body buckling from the impact, his knees threatening to give way… but he did not fall.
And then, the impossible began.
