The waves moved and flowed, lapping at the sides of the snekkja. The crew all grunted as they heaved on their oars pushing the ship closer to shore, and cursed as a splinter slid its way into their fingers. I sat at the prow watching the waves run up and retreat at the shoreline. The sun was setting and cast a red look upon the land. Appropriate no? The wind ruffled my white thick beard and the furs of my cloak my woman had made for me last winter. I donned my helm, a simple helmet that covered the top of ones head in a dome shape and then in a half circle covered my upper face with slits for my eyes. I wore chain mail beneath my brown and black tunic and had leather pants to protect me from the autumn cold and sea breeze, another gift from my woman. My ship was no more then ten ship lengths away when I unsheathed my Nordic blade forged in my poor, frozen home lands of Skandia. I smiled as I turned, pulling my scarred wooden round shield off my back as I did so. “For Oden‘s glory!” I roared at the forty-three men, each one like a brother to me, except I didn’t want to slay these ones. They all scream their own homes war cry and unsheathed their own blades: Nordic swords, axes and spears long and short, every weapon had been sharpened to the point where it drew blood just at a touch. Every man grabbed his households shield and hefted it onto their arms. The men roared again and leapt off following my lead. I could hear my ship grounding to a halt on the sand as I feel to the shallow waiting water.
I landed with a spray of white foamy water and ran forward toward a mass of lights illuminating their holders, a small pitiful bunch of levy spearmen, ran down towards the beach to form a shield wall as a means to ward us off. They were pitiful, truly. Stupid Anglos would they ever learn? I alone have raided the British isles more then a dozen times and have yet to be defeated. I roared with laughter as I rammed into the wall splintering the feebly made shield of the man I attacked. He stumbled back his shield arm still faintly trying to protect his body. I kicked him in the shield causing him to fall to his back. I stepped forward on to his shield sniggering as I heard bones break beneath the shattered form of protection that now lay atop of him like a death sentence. I ran my blade through his eye and moved forward quickly past the dying battle behind me. I laughed at the ease of which I slew the man. These men were pitiful. I knew I had won the raid, there was no doubt in my mind. I hacked down a door in a few blows smiling as I heard the dying screams and curses in the odd Anglo Saxon language.
The room was small, smaller then my own home. I crossed it in no more then two steps and grabbed the old sword and shield that hung on the wall. I heard a quiet young warrior dashing up behind me. I swung my blade as I turned and caught a child in the neck. I withdrew my blade from his twisting body and stepped on him as I departed the small home. I grabbed a torch that was sizzling in the grass, and threw it onto the house as I exited. With a fancy shield on my back and a new blade hanging at my side I went to see how the battle was fairing as I could still hear the song of death being played by the mashing of shields, ringing and rasping of blades, and the screams and curses of dying men.
I stepped over another body this one was a woman, good looking too. Blood was crusting on to the sand all around her twisted decaying body. I rounded the corner of a house and saw that the shield wall was still formed. I grabbed my blood drenched blade with a firm determined grip and swept across the distance between me and my men. I thrust my Nordic blade through an enemies back, the tip carving out his chest as it broke chain bone and muscle. I twisted and pulled the soaked blade from his falling body and swung it in an arch towards a turning spearmen. It met the meat of his neck unopposed and carved a hole through him. I looked up, feeling the warm blood of my enemies drip down my scar covered face and saw that my charge gave the men the momentum it needed. They were breaking the line and ran towards the now open and unprotected homes of the dead and dying pitiful force of half trained men. My men were off to plunder and these dead were of to see whatever God or gods they worshiped. They truly were pitiful.
By
Brendan McDonald
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