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19- Carving a Legacy
🕑 Added 2025-06-25 20:53:13 +0000 UTCThe men worked with bright energy, hauling treasure from shore onto the longship. The longship rocked gently at anchor, pulled close to shore. The wind dragged the smoke from the monastery behind them in long black lines across the sky, but no one looked back.
Wooden chests filled with silver coins were slung over shoulders and set down with a satisfying thud.
Leather sacks of gold trembled with weight as they were dumped into crates and tied off with rope. Chalices, candlesticks, and crosses, each piece more ornate than the last, were stacked in neat piles along the deck. Monks' robes, still bearing the stain of holy oils and powdered earth, were folded and laid out, threads of gold and purple glinting in the torchlight.
"By Thor's hairy backside, did you feel the weight of this one?" Alf grunted, setting a heavy wooden chest down with a thud. He straightened up, rubbing the small of his back. "I think my spine is now two inches shorter."
Alvis, who was carrying the other end, scoffed. "Stop your whining. It's the weight of being rich. Get used to it." He nudged the chest with his boot. "What do you think is inside? More of their silly cups?"
"As long as the cups are gold, they can be as silly as they want," Alf shot back.
Rollo, who had remained on the ship during the raid, sat glowering near the stern. His left hand now wrapped in dirty linen. He watched with a mixture of pride for his kinsmen's success and a bitter envy. Every cheer, every flash of gold brought to the ship, felt like a story he wasn't in. His gaze fell on Erik, who was holding a golden cross up to the dimming light, a wide grin splitting his beard.
"To their dead god!" Leif bellowed, slapping his thigh. "He gives finer gifts than Odin ever has!"
Erik chuckled as he used the tip of his seax to pry a small, red gemstone from the cover of a captured book. "Their god is a fool, Leif. He gives his followers gold, but not the balls to protect it." He popped the gemstone into a leather pouch. "Still, why complain? it is very good gold."
Thorstein smirked and gave a mock sigh, reaching down and squeezing his own crotch with a grin.
“Not a one of those monks had any of these,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
He laughed, slapping his thigh. “Guess their god forgot to bless them with courage… or manhood!”
"Did you see the look on their faces, one eyed?" Thorstein shouted. "They stared at my axe as if it were a demon!"
"They fell like sacks of grain!" Arne retorted.
He grabbed a silk altar cloth, its surface intricately embroidered with golden thread, and theatrically wiped his muddy boot on it. "This is what I think of their holy rags!" he roared, casting the precious fabric aside where it landed in a puddle of seawater and spilled ale.
The captured slaves with terrified eyes, huddled together, flinching at every loud shout.
Thick rope bound the 5 monks wrists', the fibers cutting into the fabric and skin beneath.
One of them pressed a small wooden cross to his lips, closing his eyes as if seeking comfort in its weight. He tucked it beneath his robe, fingers shaking, before sinking back against the ship's side.
Another monk, eyes wide, studied the others for permission, then repeated the gesture quietly, kissed his own cross, drew it close to his heart, and slid it beneath the folds of his tattered habit. Their fearful ritual went unnoticed by most, but in that brief, shared gesture lay more faith than all the chanting and scripture burned behind them.
Rollo's gaze fell upon them, his lip curling in a slight sneer. They were another form of treasure, he supposed, though he had little use for such weak-looking chattel. But every time he looked at the treasure, his frustration grew. He should have been there, his axe claiming its own share of the glory and the gold.
Ragnar stepped forward and laid a firm hand on Rollo's shoulder. When Rollo's scowl didn't fade, Ragnar reached up and ruffled his brother's hair, then closed his hand gently at the base of Rollo's skull. Rollo's shoulders dropped, just a little.
"Your turn will come," Ragnar said, voice low but certain. "This west, what we've done here opens the way for everyone, including you. Meaning, your deeds are only waiting to be written."
Rollo exhaled, eyes flicking to the dark horizon. Ragnar gave his shoulder one more reassuring squeeze.
"The West is real now," Ragnar added. "No one can deny it anymore, Brother."
Rollo met his brother's gaze, nodded once, and turned back to the captives. The weight of what he'd missed eased, replaced by purpose, and a promise of battles still to come.
"What are we going to do with them anyway? They don't understand our language, and they worship a false god, so keeping them seems pointless." Rollo asked.
"Not all of them are useless," Ragnar followed his gaze. "That one does, and his name is Athelstan. I believe, he is worth a lot more than gold and silver."
"More importantly, what are you going to do about Bjorn?" Rollo asked concerned. "He came back before any of you. The only thing he say is, 'They'll soon be here', then just went and sat by the mast."
Rollo then continued, "I mean it's not the first time such thing happen, remember when he was even younger, he would just sit and stares at the sky for hours, as if hoping for an answer or sign."
"He'll find his fire again, as he always did," Ragnar said softly. "Give him time."
Amidst this joyous chaos, Bjorn lay apart, a solitary figure of stillness. His back was pressed against the hull, his gaze lost in the vast, indifferent expanse of the sky.
Floki, his lanky frame perched on the ship's rail, overheard them. He had returned from the scriptorium last, leaving a fire behind to consume the monks’ strange words. A smirk touched his lips at the memory, but it vanished as he looked at Bjorn.
Floki, walking the line between madness and genius, saw what the others missed., understood what the others did not. He knew this was not the work of men. He looked at Bjorn's quiet form with a rare expression of knowing pity.
After hours of them sailing towards their home, inside Bjorn, the storm had passed. The hot rage that had consumed him had burned itself out, leaving behind no warmth, only ashes. He had landed in that cold, quiet place called acceptance, where nothing burns anymore but everything aches.
The questions circled endlessly in the void. Why was he even here in the first place? Why him? What was the point of this strength, this life, if the cornerstones of it could be ripped away? Was the taking of that face, that voice, that name, the trigger for something? The silent questions were sent up to the empty sky, and the silence... was the only answer.
And in that silence, he finally understood. He had thought of the gods as patrons, allies. He was wrong. They did not deal in kindness or fairness; they dealt in power and sacrifice.
They had given him their marks, set him on a path. But the payment they demanded was the one thing he would never have traded.
They had taken his brother. Not his life, for that was long gone. They had taken his very existence from Bjorn’s mind, a soul so central to his own that he now felt like a hollowed-out tree, standing but dead inside.
A cold certainty settled in his bones. ‘The gods take what they want,’ he thought, the words forming with bitter clarity. ‘And they eventually get what they want.’
A new cynical thought cut through the fog. 'Gods, huh? I don’t buy that. They’re just some kind of higher beings with powers I don’t understand yet.'
A new fear than any he had ever known, took root. If they could rip away his brother's name and face, what else was vulnerable? Would he one day wake and find the memory of the ship; Eldingr, gone as well? The fear was not of death. It was of erasure.
That was when the seed of an idea was planted. A vast, world-conquering idea born not of greed or glory, but of desperate, defiant preservation.
He looked at the ship’s timber, at the wood beneath his hands. 'If I can't remember your name… I will build it.'
His gaze sharpened, a flicker of the fire returning, but changed now, colder and harder. 'Then I will make sure the whole world knows the name of your ship.'
The idea took hold, a lifeline in the abyss. If he could carve its saga into every sea, every new land, every kingdom from here to the edge of the world… then it would exist outside of his fragile memory. It would be real. Unbreakable.
“Then maybe I won't need to remember,” he whispered to the timber, the words a vow made not to any god, but to a ghost. “Maybe the world will do it for me.”
