He checked Ragnorak’s chest. “A burn. It is already clean. It will heal,” was the brief summation. “I will work on your shoulder.”
He reached into the large pouch hanging out his side and brought out what he would need. As Askell pressed a poultice onto the opening, Ragnarok considered his situation. They were holding course away from land. Bjarni-the-Farsighted was excellent at being able to keep the ship moving in a straight line without benefit of landmarks. Ragnarok wasn’t quite sure how he did it, but the skill had been proven over and over again during the years they had sailed together that he had an implicit faith in the helmsman. Fog still surrounded them, although the wind had died somewhat. Nothing was visible in any direction except dark gray. Most men dared not sail out of sight of land, for fear of becoming lost on the open sea, but Ragnarok knew once the sun rose, they could always reverse course and sail in the direction the sun came from to find land once more. He had sailed up and down the coast of Norway many times, although never this far north.
He had come along the coast looking for arable land, a valuable commodity in this part of the world. All he had found were steeper hills, worse weather, the burning mountain and fog and subsequently the encounter the previous evening.
There were rumors going around the Viking world of strange things happening. Traders from the south talked of earthquakes that killed many. The religion of the Christians had taken over much of the world south of the Vikings and even now was claiming many a Norseman converted. And there were many Christian monks who were warning of the coming of the millennium since the birth of one they called God. That there was to be a second coming after much devastation.
Ragnarok didn’t believe in the Christian god. They claimed they had only one, yet they spoke of three, which he didn’t understand. And while some of the priests of this religion claimed pending doom, others said nothing of it. He had participated in raids on several monasteries in England and Eire Land and while he didn’t accept their religion, he did respect the fortitude of the monks he encountered who wavered not the slightest in their steadfast belief in their god, even as they died on the sword.
Ragnarok believed in the Norse gods of his mother, but they were not the most important thing in his life. The ship that swayed under his feet was the center of his life and had been for years.
The longship was over eighty feet long and fifteen feet wide at the center beam, a large but not overly big longship. Ragnarok had heard that King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway had had a ship built the previous year over 160 feet long, twice the size of his ship. Ragnarok wished he could see such a massive ship, but he also knew that if he ever came across the King’s ship on the water, it would be the last thing he would ever see unless he could outrun it.
The keel of Ragnarok’s boat was hewn from a single large oak tree and curved using the strength of many men. The keel beam was carved in a T-shape, the thinner end of which extended into the water. Long experience at sea had taught the Vikings that this shape aided in steering a true course.
The ship’s ribs were also of solid oak to give strength and stability. The outside of the ship was constructed using inch thick sections of overlapping oak planking called strakes. The strakes were nailed to the ribs and also tied with spruce-root bindings. The total effect was a very strong, yet flexible ship, able to take on the batterings of an open ocean sailing yet drawing such little water that it could easily be pulled up on a beach and then pushed back into the water.
The mast was actually not very tall for such a long ship, only twenty-five feet high, hewn from a single tree. What the sail lacked in height it made up for in width, being over forty feet wide. That unique design allowed it to be raised or lowered quickly. It was made of a double layer of coarse wool, a dusky gray color except where a large blood red hand silhouette had been painstakingly dyed into the cloth.
Supplies were carried under floorboards that gave access to the low lying space beneath them and the keel. Just behind the mast, an iron pot was hung over a large hearth stone where, when the sea was totally calm and conditions favorable, a fire could be used to cook meals. Those conditions were few and far between and the crew usually subsisted on dried meat and stale bread while they were at sea. Caskets and barrels where lashed here and there, containing other supplies and, most importantly, drinking water.
The crew was totally exposed to the sea at all times, the only shelter coming when they slept under the nominal cover of the rowing seats, three feet wide, that stretched across the width of the ship. There were fifteen seats, accommodating thirty rowers. Over each row station shields hung on hooks. At the prow of the boat, a dragon head had been carved, the beast’s eyes searching the sea ahead.
The rudder was also a uniquely Viking invention, fixed to a large block on the right side of the rear of the boat. Bjarni steered the boat using a tiller bar. On the opposite side of the tiller, two vertical wood poles were set into the top of the hull, which the men held onto, rears sticking over the sea, in order to void their bowels.
The ship was all Ragnarok had and he had helped build it over the course of three years as a young man. He had sailed it for the past ten years and it had been his only home for the past four.
A voice came from the front of the boat. “We’re clear of the fog!”
Ragnarok looked up and the front of the boat was bathed in the early morning light. They slid out of the fog. Ragnarok looked back. The fog was like a wall behind them, the gray surface covering the horrors they had experienced.
“We’re safe now,” Tam Nok said.
Of more interest to Ragnarok than his wound was his passenger. The one who called herself a Disir, an emissary of the Gods, sent to Earth to help man. At least that was the role of Disir in the stories his mother had told him. Other than deflecting the golden beam from the Valkyrie, she had done little to show her powers. That there were Gods and that those Gods sent their minions to Earth to interfere in the affairs of men, Ragnarok had no doubt. There were too many unexplained things, too many wonders and horrors for it all simply to be a matter of chance. The Norse believed the Gods had made man, and thus they could play with him as they willed. Man could fight the Gods to the best of his abilities and sometimes even win if one was brave and true enough.
And if one lost fighting the Gods, the gate to Valhalla would certainly open. For a Viking there was no greater honor than dying bravely in battle, weapon in hand. A man who lived to an old age and died in his bed was viewed with disdain, a drain on the resources of his village. A coward who had simply not sought out that last fight that brought honorable death.
Valhalla was the hall of chosen slain where men dined and drank deeply at the table of the Gods. Every evening the warriors fought each other to the death and then their wounds and bodies were healed so they could repeat the same the following day. It was the kind of after-life existence that every Viking warrior dreamed of.
Ragnarok’s mother had been a story-teller, one who knew all the tales and on the long winter days and nights, the entire village used to gather around her to hear her voice. Thus Ragnarok knew of the Disir and the Valkyries- unnatural women who meddled in the affairs of men. Even the monsters he had caught glimpses of in the fjord had not shocked him. He had seen strange things on and in the ocean during his journeys and heard tales from men he believed of even stranger creatures. Now he had his own tale to tell, although he knew he never would- because he had left the enemy standing on the battlefield.
Like many in this part of the world, Ragnarok knew the world was a much larger place than what he saw and experienced. There was always more water and lands beyond over the horizon and he had a burning desire to see as much of it as he could before his end came in battle.