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17- Strange People, New God.
🕑 Added 2025-06-24 15:06:27 +0000 UTCThe sixteen Vikings stepped through the breach in the outer wall, not into the chaos of battle, but into a silence. The only sound was the slow, rhythmic tolling of a single bell somewhere within the compound.
The courtyard was empty. No one ran. No one screamed. It was as if the inhabitants had simply vanished from existence.
Ragnar Lothbrok stood in the center of the yard, axe held loosely in his right hand and shield firm in his left. His blue eyes scanned the silent stone buildings, noting every detail. He saw a garden with herbs planted in neat rows, a bucket left by a well, a door to a small outbuilding left slightly ajar. A pair of wooden sandals were left abandoned on a step recently.
It was a place of meticulous order, yet utterly devoid of the life that should have been tending it. This wasn't the welcome he expected.
To his right, Bjorn moved beside him, he looked at the scene with the surreal detachment of a historian walking through his own textbook.
The crew of Norsemen stood behind Ragnar in a loose formation, fanned out but close with weapons drawn. They looked at one another, eyes narrowing. There was no resistance. No defenders.
"It smells wrong," Torstein grunted while sniffing the air. "Like a sickroom. And the ground… it's shorn like a sheep's fleece."
"It's a trick, it must be." Leif muttered, his eyes darting towards the silent doorways. "They are surely waiting for us inside."
Then, a new sound resonated, it was faint but clear. A muffled, rhythmic chanting, underscored by a terrified cry that was quickly silenced. The sound came from the largest building, a stone church with a heavy, iron-banded oak door. Every head snapped towards it.
Ragnar slowly turned, raising two fingers, signaling silence.
Then, a subtle gesture toward the church.
No one spoke as they moved as one.
At the door, they formed a half-moon.
The sound was clearer now; a low murmur, men's voices weaving together in fear or faith.
Ragnar looked at Bjorn and gave a slight nod. "With me."
Bjorn nodded back. He stepped forward with Ragnar, turning sideways.
They lunged and their shields struck the door as one. The impact produced a deafening boom that echoed across the courtyard.
With a sound of destruction, the door exploded inward, torn from its hinges and crashing to the stone floor inside.
From inside, the panicked chanting rose in volume, breaking into individual cries of terror.
For a moment, Ragnar and Bjorn stood in the opening, framed by the dust and splintered wood.
The interior was a cavern of cool, dim stone. The air that washed over them was thick with the alien, sweet smell of beeswax and incense. Dozens of candles flickered, their tiny flames reflecting in the golden and silver objects that lay on a far altar.
And at the heart of it all, they saw them. Dozens of strange men in dark robes, huddled in a tight, weeping mass, their strangely shaved heads bowed. They were unarmed. And they were helpless.
Bjorn stepped forward first with his shield held high. Ragnar was beside him, his eyes not seeing holy relics, but silver and gold, weighed and valued in an instant.
The other fourteen Vikings began to pour in behind them, their initial confusion replaced by the greedy realization of what this place was.
The walls were stone, rough in some places, smooth in others, painted with faded shapes. Human figures. Bleeding ones. Calm and sorrowful eyes that stared down. A man nailed to a piece of wood.
At the far end, a long table was draped in colored cloth. On top of it sat gleaming things; metal cups, bowls, and plates that caught the morning light in gold and silver glints. A large cross stood at the center, carved or cast in metal, its arms lined with small red stones.
Behind it, strange boxes, covered in markings and studs. One sat open, pages inside glinting like the wings of beetles; inks of blue, red and gold, formed curls and beasts and letters the Northmen could not read.
For a long, stretched moment, no one moved. The Vikings, poised for battle, stood locked in place by the sheer strangeness of the scene. The monks, huddled near the altar, were a frozen tableau of terror.
There were no warriors.
That was the first thing they truly felt, beyond the strangeness of the place. No shield wall. No spears. No cries of defiance. Only robed men, trembling like sheep and hiding behind gold.
Ragnar's eyes swept the hall once more, again searching for trickery. Traps. Blades. Men with courage. But there were none. It was unnatural.
The silence was broken Leif, his voice low but tinged with disbelief.
“This is a strange place,” he muttered with eyes scanning the gilded altar and jeweled crosses. “They have all this treasure… but no men to protect it.”
He turned with his brow furrowed. “I don't understand. Why would they build something like this, so rich, and yet leave it guarded by... these cowards?”
They were warriors raised in a world where wealth drew blood, where power meant protection or conquest. This place broke those rules. And somehow, that made it feel more wrong.
Floki, his eyes were wide with a feverish and mocking curiosity, landed on the large, jewel-encrusted cross at the center of the altar. He giggled.
"Look at this," he chirped while striding forward. His boots made loud taps on the stone floor, each one causing the monks to flinch. He ignored the cowering monks and ran a hand over the painted figure of the crucified man. "They worship a bleeding man nailed to a tree. How weak."
He reached out a slender, dirt-stained finger and traced the edge of a silver plate, leaving a smudge. Then he picked up a golden chalice, heavy and studded with uncut gems.
He held it up, peering into it as if it held some great secret. "It is empty," he declared to the others. He let out a high-pitched giggle. "They have golden cups, but nothing to drink!" He then spat into the chalice, made a show of turning it upside down, then, with a dismissive flick of his wrist, he tossed it. It spun through the air and clattered onto the stone floor.
That was the sound that broke the spell. A monk, his face a mask of horrified outrage, screamed, "Profanitas!" and lunged forward, not with a weapon, but with his bare hands, as if to tackle Floki.
He never made it.
Thorstein's axe was a blur of motion. It wasn't a killing blow, but a brutal backhand swing with the flat of the blade. The iron axe head connected with the monk's face with a crack of bone. The man dropped to the floor with blood pouring from his shattered nose and cheek.
One stepped forward. Thin, old, and shaking. He raised his hands.
"Miserere... miserere nobis, Domine..."
The voice was soft. But steady.
The others froze.
"What's he saying?" Thorstein asked, fingers tightening on his axe handle until his knuckles went white.
"Don't know," Arne replied while raising his shield higher. "Sounds like spell-weaving to me."
"Those words..." Kauko muttered, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "They flow like the seidr women's chants. Dark magic."
The monk kept speaking foreign words. A slow, chanting rhythm; not shouting, not begging. Like the ritual songs their own wise women in the sagas sang to call upon the spirits.
"He's weaving something," Thorstein said again, his voice pitched higher now. "Look at his hands; the way they move in the air."
"Should we stop him before it takes hold?" Arne's shield arm trembled slightly. "What if he calls down curses?"
Ragnar said nothing. He watched the man's lips, the way his fingers moved in patterns; drawing shapes in the air that meant nothing to their eyes but seemed to hold power for the trembling figure before them.
The monk's voice grew stronger, more confident. "Libera nos a malo... et ne nos inducas in tentationem..."
"That's it," Kauko growled while stepping forward. "I'm not waiting for whatever curse he's weaving." Then he raised his axe.
The monk's eyes widened but his voice never wavered, the foreign words continuing to spill from his lips.
Just as the axe reached its peak, Bjorn's hand shot out and caught the handle mid-swing.
"Hold," he said quietly.
The sudden stop sent a shock through Kauko's arms. He stared at Bjorn, confused. "But he's casting—"
"I said wait." Bjorn's calm voice cut through the rising panic. "He's no threat. Besides... they are praying, not casting spells."
Kauko's grip loosened. He nodded once, though his eyes never left the strange man.
The old man had stopped chanting. His face was pale and his legs gave out beneath him. He hit the stone floor hard, his brown robes, rougher than anything they'd seen but clearly well-made; billowing around him.
He whispered something in that same foreign tongue, the words barely audible.
Bjorn handed Kauko's axe back to him, patted him on the shoulder then approached the fallen man slowly.
He crouched down until they were eye to eye.
The man stared back with wide, terrified eyes.
"Bjorn," he said simply, pointing to himself. He let the name hang in the air between them.
The robed man's mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out. His eyes darted to the others, then back to Bjorn, clearly trying to understand.
Bjorn tried again, slower this time.
"My name is Bjorn." The words he spoke were in English rather than old Norse.
The man's brow furrowed deeply. He understood it was speech, but the meaning was clearly lost.
Behind him, his companions shifted restlessly with his gibberish. Thorstein cleared his throat and approached him. "Bjorn, what are you saying?", his right hand started towards Bjorn's shoulder, but froze mid-air. The image of Rollo with a burned left hand flashed in his mind. Thorstein slowly lowered his arm, it was not a risk worth taking.
Bjorn ignored him, and thought harder on how he could communicate with them looking for common words between modern English and the old one.
"I... am... Bjorn," he said slowly, exaggerating each word.
Still nothing but confusion in the old man's eyes.
He rose to his feet and took a small step toward the other robed figures, who had pressed themselves against the far wall. The tallest among them, a gaunt young man with silvered hair, watched him.
"English?" Bjorn asked slowly letter by letter.
The tall monk tilted his head with his lips moving silently. There was recognition there, some of the sounds were familiar, but not quite right.
"Englisc?" the monk said hesitantly, the word twisted into an unfamiliar shape.
Bjorn's heart jumped. Close, but not the same of course, Old English. Anglo-Saxon. He was dealing with a language that was centuries away from what he knew.
"Yes," he said eagerly. "English. Englisc."
The monk spoke slowly, carefully: "Hwæt eart þu? Hwanon come þu?"
The words were like English, but mangled beyond recognition. Bjorn caught maybe one sound in three that seemed familiar.
"I don't understand," he said while shaking his head, then tried to think of simpler words. "Me... Bjorn."
He pointed to himself emphatically.
The monk's eyes lit up slightly. "Bjorn," he repeated, the name sounding strange in his accent. "Ic eom Æþelred."
He pointed to himself in return.
"Ethelred?" Bjorn tried to repeat it.
"Æþelred," the monk corrected patiently.
Bjorn nodded then searched his mind for the simplest possible words, ones that might have changed less over the centuries.
"We..." he pointed to his companions, "come... from sea."
The monk squinted, clearly struggling. "Sæ?" he said suddenly. "Sea? Fram sæ?"
"Yes!" Bjorn nodded vigorously. "From sea. Ship."
"Scip," the monk nodded, understanding dawning. "Ge sind scipherend."
"We are not here to hurt you," Bjorn said slowly, then immediately realized how useless that was.
The monk stared blankly.
Bjorn tried again, searching for the most basic concepts: "We... no... kill."
He made a cutting motion with his hand, then shook his head.
"Ne slean?" the monk asked hesitantly.
Bjorn had no idea what that meant, but the tone suggested he was on the right track. He nodded encouragingly. "No kill. No hurt."
A younger monk who had been watching from the shadows stepped forward slightly, hope flickering in his dark eyes. "Frið?" he asked quietly. "Ge willað frið?"
The word 'frið' sounded almost familiar. Peace? Friend? Safety?
"Yes," Bjorn said, hoping he was right. "Frið."
The monks exchanged meaningful glances. The old one who had collapsed was struggling to his feet, supported by two brothers whose faces showed cautious optimism.
"Hwí come ge hider?" Æþelred asked carefully.
"Why...?" Bjorn caught that much. "Hwí... why?"
"We... look for..." He mimed eating. "Food."
"Mete," the monk nodded. "Food. Ge hingriað."
"And..." Bjorn then mimed weighing something heavy in his hands. "Gold?"
The word came out clearly, and several monks' faces darkened with understanding.
"Gold," Æþelred repeated grimly. "Ge secað gold."
The communication was broken and fractured, but the basic equation was clear to all: Vikings wanted treasure, monks had treasure, and blood would decide who kept it.
Bjorn's face hardened. The time for delicacy was over. He had to make the terms, and the consequences, brutally clear. He looked Æthelred in the eye.
"We... take... gold." He pointed to the glittering altar, its treasures now taking on the aspect of a funeral pyre. Then he held his hands out, palms up, in the universal gesture of offering. "You... give... gold." He pointed toward the shattered door. "We... go." He paused, letting the promise settle like sediment. "Frið."
He let the word settle, then his expression shifted, the Viking warrior replacing the would-be diplomat. He pointed a single, grim finger at Kauko, who was still watching with a hungry look, his axe resting on his shoulder, and also the others.
"You… fight…" Bjorn's voice dropped to a low growl. He drew his thumb sharply across his own throat. "…We kill. All."
He let his hand fall to his side with terrible finality.
The ultimatum was delivered.
In the flickering candlelight, the men from the sea and the men of God faced each other across an unbridgeable chasm of language and belief. But some truths needed no words; the language of violence was universal, and gold was a language both cultures understood perfectly.
Then, almost to himself, in English, words meant not for them, but for the only person left who could understand: himself.
"If you choose to protect something with your life…" He stops for a breath with his eyes locked on the monk's with a strange, distant grief. "…then don't be surprised when it costs you everything."
He drew in a slow breath with his jaw tightening, like it was holding back. "Twelve years in this world taught me that. But of course..."
He glance downward with a flicker of weariness in his voice. "...you don't understand. No one does. And no one will."
Bjorn slowly rose from the cold stone floor, his gaze lingering one final time on the huddled monks, and his expression was unreadable, neither cruel nor kind.
Without a word, he pivoted on his heel and faced the others.
The Vikings were still watching him strangely with confusion, unsure what they had just witnessed.
His eyes swept across the gathered men. Three figures were missing: Ragnar, Leif, and Erik. 'Of course Ragnar was gone. Off to find his soulmate'
The silence stretched until his calm voice broke it.
"Take every treasure." He let the words hang in the air a heartbeat longer.
"If anyone resists…" His gaze hardened. "…you know what to do."
He turned and walked toward the door. The men standing closest stepped aside, clearing his path without a word.
Just as he reached the threshold, a new sound began. It wasn't a cry of pain, but the tearing sound of fabric. He glanced back to see one of his men ripping the illuminated pages from the precious book, crumbling the priceless manuscript for the sheer joy of destruction. Another Viking was using the shaft of his spear to pry the red stones from the altar cross.
He didn't need to see the first body fall to know the treaty of "frið" was already being written in blood.
He exhaled slowly, eyes forward, and stepped into the open air, the scent of beeswax and blood already clinging to his clothes.
"I did what I could," he murmured with a quiet ache in his voice as he looked up and searched the indifferent sky. "I hope that counts... brother."
