He soared like a raven, flying high above the stream of water that came from the highest peaks of the northern lands, the Skyldrhraun, which were so high they were even visible from the lands of Broacien. The rustling of the wind – and feathers – echoed in his ears, and no other sound was heard in the entire world in that moment. He was all alone here, and yet the gods were with him, accompanying him on this journey.
No, not accompanying. Guiding him.
They carried him over the vast expanses of the northern lands, lands that colored deep and darkly green, while sometimes they were icy white, covered in snow and heaping mountains of ice. The Skyldrhraun was especially rich in ice, which often came crashing down to the bottom of the mountain. When it did, it crashed and broke into a thousand pieces before melting away.
As he followed the stream of water, it became wider and wider, arcing left and right through the landscapes, hewing it’s way like a sword through an arm, before finally bounding decisively to the left. He followed it, and in the distance saw the great swallowing mouth of the ocean, it’s mouth-foam rolling onto the black sand beaches of the shores of these lands like the white foam that came from the berserkir’s mouth when he entered his battle trance, fuelled to battle on a mixture of potent, hallucinogenic mushrooms and a blood frenzy like that of the cursed wolf.
His wings – and the guidance of the gods – carried him further over the ocean, which was as dark as the darkest blue eyes he had ever seen, and perhaps even darker than that. The winds carried him further and further over the water, until the water was pitch black, and it was hard to differ between the dark ocean and the night sky above. Eventually, it was completely black, and only the continued rustle of his feathers reminded him that he was still flying. Then, out of nowhere, a dot of white appeared on the black ocean.
Tilting his body forward, he turned his flight into a free dive, flying towards the white dot until it became a boat, and the white became the sails. The boat was empty, but it was headed for the northern shores, it’s interior blackened with blood. He was only allowed a single flight around the boat before he lost his wings, and fell to the water, the black ocean-mouth swallowing him whole, it’s coldness consuming him.
He woke up and sat upright, his hand reaching for the seax stored on the table beside his bed. His eyes scanned the room, but it was pitch black, and he saw nothing except for the figure laying besides him in bed – his wife, Najla, a woman who he had hated more than he had loved her for the majority of their life. As she breathed, the furs they used for warmth rose with her breath, and reinstalled a calm in his mind. Never the less, he had been roused from his sleep, and his vision had given rise to a new frustration in his heart.
A frustration that would prove to be hard to lose. Slowly he rose from his bed, pulling a well-crafted, decorated tunic over his head, and fastening a belt around his waist, before pulling on his pants and boots. Today the drengir were set to arrive, and he needed to take charge of their tribute. Hopefully, it was bountiful.
Several hundred kilometers further to the east, far removed from Ketillsborg, two lonesome men mounted on the short and stubby horses of the north, which were something in between a pony and a Broacienien thoroughbred. These horses were blessed with a thicker coat of hair, protecting them from the cold and frigid environment in the many mountains, hills and rolling fields of grass and snow in the north.
The two men wore the typical armor of the northern tribes – tunics over chainmail, with a firm cold-resistant padding of a gambeson underneath, made of leather, fur and sheeps wool. In their hands were short spears, perfect for handling on the shorter horses – although cavalry was a near non-existent concept to the northerners, who fielded none of their own whenever the hrafna-banner of Ketill the Hrafn flew.
“And then we sailed up the river the Sawarim call the Thueban,” one of the two spoke in the characteristic northern tongue, his horse trotting along over the hill of dark green grass, “we had to roll the ships over a large field of sand, gold like the sun, and then we were able to cross onto the river with no name. From there we sailed to the golden city of the coal-men.”
“And the pyramid?”
“Visible from far away. It was in our sight at least a full day before we arrived. They had no idea we were coming, so we disembarked from our boats right on their docks and began taking what was ours.”
The other nodded in affirmation, before his eyes turned forwards towards the ocean in front of them. They were stood on a large cliffside, separating them from the beach, the wind blowing heavily against their cloaks sending them flapping in the wind besides them. Below them, on the black sand beach, laid the remains of a ship much different in make from the northerner’s ships.
It seemed smashed to pieces, laid against a few large rocks, but never the less the presence of foreign ships was something that needed a response.
“Ride for home!” one of the men on the cliffside yelled, taking the rein and turned it left, making his horse turn around and gallop away alongside the cliffside, headed for the small town on the western coast of the northern peninsula.
A few hours later, the easily recognizable ship design of the Northmen slowly but surely sailed over the coursing black sea, cleaving it in two with ease. It was headed for the site that the two scouts atop their horses had pointed out, with a man on the front of the ship looking out over the waves, his eyes piercing the distance in search of the place they had been told of. “There!” he cried when he saw it, his right hand reaching out and pointing out the ship – or, rather, what remained of one. It had clearly smashed against the rocks of the cliff, and broke up rather easily.
“It’s.. made of sticks?” one of the men said, clearly surprised at the lack of craftmanship – or, rather, the lack of ingenuity in the design. Clearly the ship had taken a lot of work to build, as wicker was an inexpensive but time consuming material to make. It was a surprise it was seaworthy, as the seas were rough, especially in the west.
“No, not just sticks,” another said, leaning over the edge of the Northern Karvi-ship, a ship that was among the smallest of ships the northerners made – and yet it was larger than this foreign ship – where he fished a piece of the wicker boat out of the water. It still had a piece of tanned leather on the outside, alongside some tar where the leather overlapped onto another hide. “Tanned hides, too,” he said, showing his fellow northerners before throwing the wood back into the water. There was no value in saving it. The design of the ship was clear – wicker frameworks over which hides of animals were bound to keep out the water. The hides were seared with tar where they overlapped, to make them waterproof. Ingenious, but primitive.
It was hard to leave the ship here, as the rocks prevented anyone from beaching their ships, so the norsemen resolved to use their oars to keep the ship at a distance from the rocks that prevented the ship from beaching at in the sand. Two of the men jumped overboard into a waist-high level of water, prevented from toppling over by virtue of the incessant crashing of the waves only by the ship that was between them and open sea. They waded their way to the rocks, plucking through the remnants of the foreign ship, stepping onto the black sand shores when there was nothing more to find on the rocks.
Using a spear, one of the men turned over a few loose pieces of the wreckage, looking for any valuables that may have washed up ashore amidst the ruined boat. The other was bent over, axe in hand, peering at the sand. “Footsteps,” he slowly said, looking up and to the left, where the footsteps trailed off to the large bend of land that would lead to the five isles, the sacred islands of the Northerners. Slowly the man raised to his feet, and followed the tracks he’d found. After taking a good ten or so steps, it became apparent that the tracks would go for a while yet. Raising his arm he gestured to the ship to follow alongside the coast. Pushing themselves off against the rocks, and using the oars as a tool to push themselves along the edge of the rocky outcroppings on the beach.
After half an hour it became clear that these people – whoever they were – were not close anymore. The tracks continued along the beach, and so the two scouts embarked on the ship again. Together, they rowed against the current of the sea dragging them to shore until they were far enough away that the current would not pose a meaningful challenge to them.
It would take well over an hour before the group reached the next site in their search for the strangers on their lands; in the distance, where the rocks made way for real beaches, two more of the strange boats had been beached, these ones still intact. Their earlier suspicions were confirmed when they found that the ships were constructed of wickerwork, with hides spanned over it – and, the boats included a mast of sorts, smaller than that of the Karvi of the Northerners. From the boat itself it was apparent that they had not used oars – or if they had, they had been taken with them, as they were missing. Perhaps this was why the previous boat had crashed so harshly against the rocks – with only a sail, there was no way to control the way the boat moved.
On the other hand, with the oars of the Karvi it was easy to steer the ship where-ever it needed to go, and so with a few ferocious pulls on their oars the norsemen, tall and strong, pushed the ship ashore on the beach so that the ocean could not take it. One by one they disembarked, and while a few of the men studied the many tracks around the boats, the others searched the ships for anything of value. Were these the ships of foreign traders, from the isles to the west, the lands of Cérnun?
The Northerners had travelled here before, and had found an isle of strange people, people who followed a variety of kings, and a religion strange to the Northerners. The area would have been ripe for raids, but the area was impoverished and far away from the more fertile raiding grounds of Broacien and other raiding grounds. Instead, Cérnun was only visited by traders who lived on the western side of the Northern peninsula, which was the most mountainous of regions in the north. Here, the mountainsides were home to the northern
Aurochs, massive beasts that grazed atop high mountaincliffs overlooking the ocean. It was primarily the goods from these aurochs that were traded to Cérnun – horns, hides – but also finely crafted woodcrafts, bonecrafts, and metalworks. The earnings, however, were meager.
“More tracks, inland!” one of the men suddenly yelled, gesturing for the direction in which a small path curled up onto the cliffs, allowing one to make a slow but safe trip up the cliffs towards the inland area of the North. If these strangers were here to raid, they were setting themselves up for failure. The Northerners would not give up their riches so easily.
The group of six or so men quickly made their way up the ridge on the cliffside, walking faster than perhaps they should have, a quick death at the end of a long fall from the cliff always looming. But the adrenaline of strangers on their shores had whipped them into shape, prepared to fight if need be.
Tracking the strangers – whom they presumed to be from Cérnun at this point – was not hard. If they were raiders, they moved carelessly, not afraid to hide their movements and actions from the Northerners. For this, they earned some respect.
But after a short travel, they did not stumble across a gang of raiders – instead, they found themselves on the edge of a forest, where they saw a small tuft of smoke coming from just over the edge of the shrubbery. Huddled around the fire were several figures, a few of which stood out – dressed in clothes that could hardly be called ‘’finery’’ but were certainly a measure above the clothes of a sheep farmer.
A wealthy woman, another woman to her side, and a host of guards – alongside a few men dressed in clothes that were somewhere in between rich and poor.
A poor host for raiding, to be sure.
The northerners stepped into the open, revealing themselves to the strangers, their weapons hanging casually and idly at their side. The northerners were certainly a measure taller than the strangers, and a fair bit wider, built like the aurochses they herded. One of the tallest of the Northerners, who was dressed in the most expensive looking gear, stepped forward. In one hand, he held a Northern-styled sword, an edge on both sides, and a slim crossguard. The other held a shield, painted with the insignia of a white raven – the sign of king Ketill. He spoke up loudly to get the attention of the strangers, “hail, strange folk,” his tonguefall being characteristically norse, “what seek you in these lands?”
There would be no answer, for these Cérnunan folks spoke no Norse, or Broacienien for that matter. When things became quiet, another man stepped forth – this one dressed not quite as wealthily as the previous warrior, but respectable all the same – in his hands was a spear, though he planted the butt of it into the earth, to prevent seeming like an aggressor.
His words were flawed, and his pronunciation was terrible, but his words were understandable all the same when he began speaking in the Cérnun language, gathered from a season in Cérnun on a tradeship. <“You are from Cérnun, no? We found… hmmm.. your… vessel?”> he asked them, his reference to the boat being somewhat strained. Calling it a ‘’ship’’ was misplaced in Northern culture, since it could barely be called that, but it was clearly also not a boat. <“What seek you, here,”> he asked, gesturing to the ground to make it clear that ‘’here’’ meant ‘’the North’’. He looked at the men and women, waiting for one to speak, before he gestured towards the well-equipped man with the sword that had tried speaking to the Cérnun people before. <“This, Ubba Asbjornsson of my village. He is head of village – and he is þegn of konungr Ketill.”>
He suddenly spread his arms wide, and flapped them up and down, before he looked at the sky and pointed out a bird. <“The Raven, he is.”>
Through this story it became clear – a little strained, perhaps – that these were the loyal men of king Ketill, who was also known as the Ravenking, or Ketill the Raven. While Ubba Asbjornsson was an important man to the westerly side of the Northern peninsula, he was unknown in foreign lands – he did not do anything of particular interest beyond trade with Arlon, raid their shores with small parties, and trade with Cérnun. But the name of the Ravenking, that was a name that the people of Cérnun would have come to learn during the trade between the two countries.
Ketill had a reputation – both as a fearsome warrior, a bear of a man, a Djinn to the Sawarim, and a raiding plague to the Broacieniens, who had come to respect and fear him, especially in the northern wastelands which were held by princess Catelyn the Riding Laugh, who had known Ketill as a child, young man, Servant of the Monarch and pious knight. This reputation would have spread to Cérnun by now, through word of mouth from the few traders who sold small scale produce in Cérnun and took back items of interest and value.
It would take a few back and forths between the two parties to reach some sort of understanding of what either side wanted – at this point, the position of the woman from Cérnun, dressed in her finery, was still unclear to the Norsemen. What
was clear however was the fact that these people sought an audience with the king, for a matter that they could not disclose so openly, yet must’ve been important for them to make the journey across a wild ocean with no means to control their ship other than a few small oars and a sail. Their countrymen had paid for it with their lives – their destroyed boat against the rocks a mortal reminder that the ocean cared little for who sailed upon it.
“That journey would take us several days,” Ubba said, his fingers in his beard as he pondered what to do. “By horse would be easier – but the lands inland are still covered by white snow, and slippery ice.”
“Good þegn,” the man who had translated before said, closing the distance to the þegn while they tried to figure out their course of action. “It is time that we visit king Ketill regardless, to pay him our share of the plunder we’ve had in Arlon. We could simply do so a little earlier than we intended, and take these strangers too.”
“Then you will lead them, with my blessing, and hopefully that of Sigga,” the þegn responded, invoking a hopeful blessing of Sigga, the goddess of the ocean – a woman whose hair consisted of the oceans, and the rivers her blood. To travel east now would be a challenge, although the men of Ubba were experienced enough sailors to do it in the Northern ships. A trip like that, however, would’ve been a certain death for the Cérnunan people – and their important cargo.
The Norsemen would guide the strangers back to their ship and bring them aboard, the ship being far too small to truly be able to accommodate these people – so, the Cérnunans had to squeeze together. In that sense, the ship would probably not be that different from their own.
With the Norsemen keeping a friendly but watchful eye on them while they rowed along the coast, they would eventually arrive in Vestrstaðr. From here, the personal ship of Ubba would be prepared within the day, a hefty chest full of random things loaded onto the ships alongside a few more men. The ship was wider, and so had space for the Cérnunan visitors to actually sit without being in the way.
From here, they travelled to Ketillsborg, the capital city of the Northern kingdom, a journey that would take five days with this ship, and would’ve taken over a week with the slower ships of the Cérnunans. There, Ketill the Hrafn awaited.
The hustle and bustle of the city was at an all time high, and was only increasing the more important Ketillsborg became to the surrounding areas. In a true testimony to the power of urbanization, more and more tribesmen were making the long journey to Ketillsborg to settle down and serve their king more closely. Never before had the city been more alive, with a mess of people moving through the docks and markets, traveling through the city for any measure of business – whether it be to visit a friend or to make a delivery, to purchase fresh fish at the docks or to trade at the docks.
This business was only amplified by the arrival of the men known as marauders in the common tongue of Broacien, and as drengir to the locals of the northern tribes. These were the men who made their homes in encampments on the islands to the east of the northern lands, and to the north of Broacien’s capital, Riverhall. Every year they would sail to Broacien, Arlon, and the Svobodnye Lyudi, where they would plunder and raid villages and religious sites. They brought back thralls – indentured servants, akin to slaves – and any measure of foreign goods, from expensive Arlonian fabrics and silverware, to the impressive wood works and practical tools and weapons of Broacien. Svobodnye Lyudi was the far less lucrative raiding place, but offered ample supply of thralls in the golden fields of wheat they fostered, thralls that were skilled in the art of breadmaking. The Northern lands were not rich in fertile lands and so any measure of grain they harvested had to be used to its fullest extent – the Svobodny thralls were useful in this endeavour.
Not only were the marauders back in port to make trade and procure resources for their prolonged stay on the isles in their makeshift cave-ports, they were also there to visit their loved ones. Or, in some cases, the local prostitutes. However, the firstmost reason they were there was to pay their tribute to Ketill the Raven, a price they needed to pay to be allowed to continue to raid the Broacienien coast. So long as the tribute was worth more than the diplomatic headache the drengir caused, they would be allowed to stay.
But alongside them had also come
new people – traders from Broacien, having sailed on a large boat, not worthy of being called a ship – the large boat was steered by a set of five men with sticks, who stood on an elevated platform on the far end of the ship and pushed it in the right direction. For the Broacieniens, it was a state of the art vessel, but to the Northern craftsmen who had been making ships for a long time, it was not that far removed from a fishing boat – upscaled, perhaps, but still a fishing boat. Compared to this thing they called a “kogge”, the Northern ships were much better – lightweight, fast, with a low vertical profile to allow it to sail up rivers, which this ‘’kogge’’ could not.
What the Broacieniens lacked in ship building qualities, they made up for in metalworking skills. The Northern tribes lacked any meaningful metal industries – their weapons were crafted from bog-iron, a strange type of iron that so far was only made by the Northerners. Using iron trapped in swamps, they would retrieve it whenever it became available – the quantities, however, were small, and so metalworking had become something of a rare trade in the north. Most of the initial raids on Broacien had involved plundering their metals – both weapons and tools. Where before most tribesmen had worked with a hatchet made of stone, now they would use one made of metal, and for the better.
Because of this, there was a large interest in these strange new traders. Luckily the Northerners spoke an ancient dialect of the Broacienien language, since they shared a common ancestor – or, more specifically, Broacieniens were in fact nomadic Northerners that had settled in Broacien centuries ago – perhaps even longer than that. Trade was made easier for it.
When Ubba’s ship sailed into the harbor – marked by it’s insignia on the sail, a raven carrying a hammer in it’s claws – not many people seemed to care or even pay attention. It was just another ship in a harbor filled with tens or hundreds more ships. It was not an overstatement to say that Ketillsborg had the largest harbor in the entire known world. And, compared to the Cérnun villages and the few towns the people of Cérnun had, it was almost like Ketillsborg was an entire world on it’s own – the sheer amount of people, and the size of the settlement, was perhaps incomprehensible.
The ship moored in a free berth, the crew getting the ship ready to be disembarked, the strangers being led along by the crew. The people in the harbor looked up at the people from Cérnun, though quickly returned to their business – the strangers were, well, different, but not interesting enough to warrant an entire moment gawking at.
On the contrary for the Cérnunans, there were plenty of things here in Ketillsborg that they would have most likely never seen before. Whether it were the men and women with a skin the color of charcoal, or the strange Broacienien merchants, dressed in fine wears wearing necklaces made of gold, or the way the city was built up, with a giant central home atop a hill, large enough to house ten or more families. Around it was a short palisade wall, although there were no gates, just a shallow climb up a short hill, helped by some logs that were dug into the ground to stand on.
<“This way,”> the man that had translated for them earlier said, gesturing towards the longhouse on the hill. <“King Ketill is a wise man – always interested in meeting new people from foreign lands.”> Under the guidance of the man, the crew of the ship carried the chest with items up the hill into the longhouse. Just before entering, the translator stopped again, and looked at the group. <“When I introduce you, leader of the group should… step forward, and speak, and I will say what you mean to him.”> He nodded affirmatively, not waiting for an answer, and then stepped into the longhouse.
The atmosphere inside was loaded, with people standing all around, busying themselves with tasks, while others sat at the large tables that were set up along the room in two rows, eating and drinking and making merry. Nobody looked up at the crew, nor the strangers, as the longhouse was packed and strangers were common.
As the crew led the chest in front of Ketill, the translator stepped forward. “King Ketill,” he spoke loudly in the Northern tongue, “I present to you the tribute from Ubba Asbjornsson, after our successful raids on the shores of Arlon this year.” He gestured to the crew, and they lifted the chest, brought it forwards before Ketill – who was seated on an elevated platform in a throne decorated with rich woodcarvings of religious symbols. They swung open the top of it, revealing a variety of goods.
Ketill waved his hand. “That’s fine. I trust Ubba,” he said – it was clear from the start that Ketill was a straight forward man, not one to speak to in refined language and with pretty words, but in a more direct manner. Ketill turned to his side, looking past the empty, smaller throne that was reserved for his wife, Najla. His eyes met that of one of his most trusted men – a warrior named Saegrimmr. “Divide those among the drengir, as my gift to them,” he ordered. Saegrimmr nodded, stepped forward and gestured for the crew with the chest to follow him. The crew and him disappeared into a room on the side of the longhouse.
“King Ketill, there is other news from the west. We found strange boats on the coast, and tracked down these people—” he said, gesturing back, his hand pointing at the Cérnunans, “we are unsure of their purpose – they wished to speak to you. And.. judging from their clothes and weapons, we didn’t think they were dangerous.”
A brief pause followed. Ketill looked the strangers over, before his eyes met that of the translator. “And? Did you cut their tongues? Out with it,” he said, his voice booming over the room.
“They do not speak our language, king—I will translate, if you’d let me.”
No answer came, only a nod. The translator gestured for the Cérnunans to step forward and speak, and would translate when they did.
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