The wind did not whisper in the Northern Fjords; it screamed. It was a constant, keening lament that ripped through the stunted pines and scoured the granite cliffs clean of snow, only to deposit fresh, stinging layers in an endless, futile cycle. To Eirik Stórbrodir, the sound was as familiar as his own heartbeat, a rhythm composed of the crash of waves on black rock, the crackle of the longfire in his father’s hall, and this ever-present, gale-force dirge.
He stood at the prow of the slender longship, the Sea-Wolf, his fur-lined cloak snapping around him like the wings of a great, dark bird. His hands, calloused and scarred from rope and sword, gripped the smooth, weathered wood of the dragon-headed prow. They were two days out from their home fjord, on a trading expedition to the neutral settlement of Kaupang, and the weather was turning. The sky, which had been a pale, milky grey all morning, was now bruising to a deep, ominous purple in the north.
“The snow-sisters are angry today, Eirik,” a voice grumbled from behind him. It was Bjorn, his father’s most trusted huscarl and his own shadow since he could walk. The older man’s beard was thick with frozen breath, his nose a ruddy beacon in a face mapped by a lifetime of salt and squints.
Eirik didn’t turn. “They are always angry, Bjorn. We just sail between their tempers.”
“Aye, and this one feels… personal.” Bjorn came to stand beside him, his bulk a solid, comforting presence. “We should have turned back at dawn. Your father would not risk his heir for a few bolts of Frankish cloth and a cask of wine.”
“My father risks his heir for the experience,” Eirik replied, his voice low and steady. At twenty winters, he was already a seasoned raider and trader, but this was his first voyage as sole commander. Every decision, every success, every failure, was his alone. “And it is not just cloth. It is alliances. It is showing the other clans that the Stórbrodir do not cower from a little wind.”
Bjorn grunted, a non-committal sound that conveyed both disagreement and unwavering loyalty. “A little wind. The gulls have fled to land. The sea itself tastes of iron. This is more than a little wind.”
Eirik finally glanced at the old warrior, a faint smile touching his lips. It rarely reached his blue eyes, which held the perpetual chill of his homeland. “Then we shall have a story to tell, old friend. A tale of how the Sea-Wolf drank the storm’s fury and asked for more.”
But as the day wore on, even Eirik’s confident resolve began to fray at the edges. Bjorn’s “little wind” became a shrieking gale. The snow-sisters did not merely weep; they unleashed a full-throated roar of white. The world dissolved into a chaotic, blinding maelstrom. The sea, once a rolling expanse of iron-grey, became a churning madness of black water and frothing whitecaps. Waves like moving mountains slammed into the Sea-Wolf, sending icy spray over the gunwales that immediately froze on the beards and cloaks of the thirty men aboard.
“Bail!” Eirik roared, his voice ripped away by the wind almost as soon as it left his lips. He had taken the steering oar himself, his muscles straining against the chaotic will of the ocean. The world had shrunk to this: the feel of the oar fighting him, the sight of his men—his men—fighting for their lives with leather buckets, and the terrifying, exhilarating knowledge that his skill alone stood between them and the greedy, cold depths.
For hours, they fought. They were Vikings, sons of the fjords, their very bones woven from sea-salt and resilience. But the storm was a living enemy, an elemental force of pure malice. It found the ship’s weaknesses. A mighty wave, a rogue titan of black water, crashed over the port side with the force of a falling giant. There was a sickening crack, louder than the thunder, as the oar in Eirik’s hands snapped, the broken end whipping back and catching him a glancing blow on the temple.
Stars exploded in his vision. The world tilted, the deck rushing up to meet him. He felt a searing, hot-cold pain in his left leg, just below the knee, as a heavy, shifting cargo chest pinned him. He heard Bjorn’s bellow of alarm, muffled and distant, as if heard through a wall of wool. Then, the cold darkness at the edge of his sight rushed in, and he knew no more.