Enthralled: Viking Lore, Book 1

Enthralled

Viking Lore

Book One

By

Emma Prince

Copyright
© 2015 by Emma Prince. All Rights Reserved
.

806 A.D.

North Sea

“Lower the sail!” Eirik
bellowed. For a moment, he feared the wind had snatched his voice, but then he
saw the black outlines of his crew rise from the deck and move on uncertain
feet toward the halyard lines.

The ocean surged
beneath the ship, threatening to topple some of the men overboard. Somehow,
they all managed to keep their feet, and a moment after they reached the
rigging, Eirik could see the inky shadow of the sail slowly lower toward the
deck.

Eirik tightened his
already white-knuckled grip on the tiller. They should have brought down the
sail at the first sign of rain, but this cursed storm had broken upon them so
quickly that he’d barely had time to bark out a few orders before the seas
turned rough and the rain and wind hit them full
force.

Even now that the
sodden wool sail was almost down, the sea still threatened to overpower his
grip on the tiller, which would send the ship careening off course.

“To oars! To oars!”
Eirik shouted into the wind. A flash of lightning illuminated the wave-battered
deck as the crew scrambled to thread the long wooden oars through the oar holes
below the gunwales.

Another flash of
lightning revealed Alaric’s drenched figure lurching toward Eirik.

“Give up on staying the
course we charted, Eirik!” Alaric yelled when he reached the tiller. “And you’d
best give the men their coins!”

Dread sliced through
Eirik, far colder than the wind and rain that lashed him. Every last member of
the crew was hunkered over an oar, pulling with the might of Thor. If they were
going to die in this storm, at least they should have a gift to give to Ran,
the sea god’s wife.

Eirik gave Alaric a
single nod before letting the tiller go. Instantly
,
the tiller swayed wildly. They were now at the sea’s mercy.

Alaric stumbled toward
the rowing men. Eirik followed, feet wide to absorb the ocean’s violent
rolling. As he passed each rower, he reached into the leather pouch at his
belt.

“For Ran,” Eirik said
to each man as he passed out gold coins.

“Ja, for Aegir’s wife!”
some of the men responded, nodding solemnly through the rain at their captain.

When every sailor had a
gold coin to give Ran to appease her and ease their journey to Valhalla, Eirik
took up an oar across from Alaric. If the gods decided that it was his time to
die, at least Eirik would go down fighting alongside his closest friend and
this worthy crew.

Only a tiny twinge of
regret shadowed his vision of entering Valhalla with his ship, his friend, and
his crew. He would never get to see the lands to the west if Aegir and Ran
claimed him and his men this day.

He dug his oar deep
into the roiling sea. By Thor, he could not die just yet. He had to live to set
eyes on these fabled lands to the west.

It wasn’t until the
last raindrop had fallen that the crew of the Drakkar stood and cheered to the
gods for surviving the storm. For Eirik’s part, he kissed the gold coin he’d
kept for himself and tossed it into the sea. It was both an acknowledgment and
an offering to Ran and Aegir.

Eirik gave orders to
withdraw the oars and unfurl their red and white striped sail once more. Then
he took a firm hold on the tiller and pointed them southeast. Based on the sun’s
position, they had been blown farther north than they’d intended to travel, but
land still should lie ahead of them.

“Did any of you girls
piss your pants?”

Eirik cringed
internally. He recognized the voice immediately. His cousin Grimar seemed
determined to make enemies within the crew.

“One storm and you’re
all cowering like women!” Grimar came into Eirik’s line of sight as he ducked
around the mast and sauntered toward the stern.

“Say that again,
boy
.”

Muttering a curse,
Eirik waved for one of the nearby men to take the tiller from him. Before he
could reach Grimar or Madrena, he heard the hiss of metal being unsheathed.

“Madrena, Grimar,
hold!” Eirik bellowed as he reached his cousin and Alaric’s twin sister. Alaric
had beaten him to Madrena’s side, however, and looked ready to cut Grimar down
if his sister didn’t.

“I’m sick of this dog
filling the air with his stench,” Madrena snapped, her eyes locked on Grimar.
Due to the close quarters on Drakkar’s deck, her bow and sword remained over
her shoulders, but she had her seax drawn and pointed toward Grimar’s throat. A
sunbeam glinted off the blade.

“And I’m sick of this
sow taking up space on a ship where a
man
, a
real warrior
, is
needed,” Grimar shot back, his own seax in hand. He held the blade lazily,
though, as if to further insult Madrena by treating her drawn dagger as naught
more than child’s play.

“Enough, both of you!”
Eirik bit out. The tension had been thick the entire voyage—by the gods, it had
been thick long before they’d set sail a sennight ago—but now it was
dangerously close to boiling over outright. “Madrena, to the stern. Grimar, the
bow.”

“’Tis for the best,”
Grimar muttered under his breath. “Run along to my cousin for protection,
girl
.
Spread your legs for him
,
and he might even make
you captain.”

Alaric caught Madrena’s
wrist just as she lunged toward Grimar’s neck, seax flashing. She let out a
shriek of rage and frustration as her brother prevented her from landing her
blow. Grimar’s pale blue eyes flashed in surprise for the briefest moment, but
then he chuckled and strolled toward the bow.

Alaric wrenched the
blade free from Madrena’s hand, but Eirik could see that the fight had gone out
of her.

“He’s not worth the
effort it would take you for you to clean and re-sharpen your seax, sister,”
Alaric said quietly as he guided Madrena toward the stern.

“Tell me again why your
swine cousin is on this voyage, Eirik,” Madrena hissed when she, Alaric, and
Eirik reached the tiller.

Eirik let out a breath
and motioned for his man to move out of the way so that he could reclaim the
tiller. He didn’t need anyone else poking their noses into the discontent that
brewed on his ship.

“You know as well as
I,” Eirik said flatly to Madrena. She rolled her pale gray eyes at him.

“Just because he’s kin—”

“Ja, and Jarl Gunvald’s
son. What did you expect me to do? Let you kill him for his offense?” Eirik
lowered his voice further so that he would be sure only Alaric and Madrena
could hear him. “The Jarl is the one who decides where we raid, when we raid—and
if we raid at all. It took me three years just to convince him to let us travel
westward instead of staying in the safe waters of our neighboring fjords or
crossing to Jutland.”

Madrena flipped the
blond braids trailing down her back and waved dismissively. By the gods, she
was as hot-tempered as her brother. Yet at least she was not like his cousin,
whom they called the Raven for his black temperament. Eirik would trust his
life to both Alaric and Madrena, his kinship with Grimar be cursed.

“But he practically
accused me of incest. Lying with you would be like lying with my blood
brother,” Madrena said lowly, the fires of anger still simmering in her eyes.

“Leave it, Madrena,”
Alaric said. “Everyone can see that Grimar is just trying to cause trouble. He’s
testing you.” The last applied to Madrena, but Alaric’s eyes flickered to
Eirik.

“I need to rid myself
of Grimar’s filth,” Madrena said tartly. She stalked to the gunwale and leaned
over, scooping up handfuls of seawater and splashing them over her face. Only a
fool or a blind man would question Madrena’s worthiness to be on this voyage.
Grimar was neither. Eirik felt himself sinking into a foul mood.

Alaric must have sensed
the weight settling over Eirik, for he said lightly, “Regale me again with the tales
you heard about this land to the west we sail toward. Can the stories be
believed? Will this all be worth a fortnight in close quarters with your
cousin?”

Alaric’s quirked mouth
and raised eyebrow softened the underlying questions that Eirik had been
mulling
over
himself for months—nei, years.

“If the monks I visited
are to be believed—and I think they are—we will encounter unguarded treasure
beyond anything we have thus far encountered in our raids.”

The rumors had started
almost fifteen summers ago, when Eirik was no longer a boy, but not quite a
man. They spoke of a land to the west which was rich and ripe for the taking.
Unprotected places of worship sat all along the coastline, filled with
treasures unimaginable—gold, silver, jewels, and more. By the time Eirik was
old enough to go on raids against neighboring Jarls’ lands, he knew that some
day he would have to see this land for himself.

But in the last few
years, change brewed in the air. The Jarls across the Skagerrak Straight in
Jutland had begun to consolidate their authority under one all-powerful King.
Jutland’s King was bent on taking these westerly lands—with their treasures,
rich farmland, and soft climate—for himself. Though Dalgaard, Eirik’s village
on the north side of the Straight, was large and prosperous, it would easily be
swallowed up by competing powers unless men like Eirik did something.

As if sensing his
thoughts, Alaric interjected. “And you believe that if Dalgaard can claim its
share of this new land’s wealth, we will no longer be bound to the endless
in-fighting with our neighbors?”

“Ja, claim this land’s
wealth—and perhaps more. Think of it, Alaric. Jutland’s King is rumored to be
leaving settlements in the west and south over
the
winter.
How great will his power grow if he gains control of this new land as well as
all of Jutland?”

“When will his appetite
for land and power be sated?” Alaric said lowly, rubbing the golden-brown
stubble on his jawline. A somber silence settled over the two men for a long
moment.

“But how can you
believe the stories?” Alaric said incredulously, once again lightening the
mood. “Unguarded piles of gold? Weakling men who can’t even wield weapons?
Those monks were probably trying to send us all to our deaths!”

“The same tales keep
spreading through the Northlands—there must be at least a seed of truth to
them, nei?”

Alaric still looked
skeptical. “And you think our future lies in this foreign land?”

Eirik believed it so
much that he had traveled several days northeast to visit a village where two monks
from Lindisfarne, a holy place they called a monastery, were enslaved as
thralls. The monks had been reluctant to talk to him at first, but Eirik had
been persistent. He had practically begged them—him, son and nephew to Jarls,
and they, thralls—to teach him their language and a bit about their religion.

Eirik had spent nearly
a year in that village to the northeast of Dalgaard, eventually winning over
the enthralled monks and learning all he could. He hadn’t even had his uncle’s
permission to embark westward at the time. He had wagered everything on his
conviction and knowledge, hoping that they would be enough to convince Jarl
Gunvald that the future of Dalgaard lay to the west.

“Ja, I do, brother,”
Eirik said with a wry grin. “But I suppose we won’t know until we get there.”

“Land!”

The shout from the bow
jerked both Alaric and Eirik’s heads up.

“Land, straight ahead!”
Haakon, one of Eirik’s most trusted seamen, was leaning over the curved prow of
the Drakkar, squinting into the thin mist that settled over the water around
them.

Just then, Eirik saw a
foggy shape emerge from the mist. His chest tightened. Land. Despite the storm,
despite being blown off course to the north, they had found it, the storied
lands to the west.

A bellow went up from
the crew. Several drew their weapons and brandished them at the large landmass
that was taking shape before them, at the sky, and at the sea.

As the ship drew closer
to the shore, Eirik handed over the tiller to Alaric and strode to the bow.

“Quiet!” he barked over
his shoulder. “Your noise will carry across the water.”

Despite his
admonishment, he clenched his fists impatiently as the land in front of them
slowly emerged through the mist. He longed to leap over the gunwale, sword in
one hand, ax in the other, and place his feet on solid ground. But he couldn’t
be sure yet that this was the stretch of coastline they were aiming for.

Just then, the land in
front of them solidified and darkened, but another landmass eased out of the
mist behind it. This was just an island off the larger mainland, then. The
sharply rising island grew more distinct a
s
they drew nearer. Eirik could now make out some sort of structure perched on
top of the hump rising from the sea.

Eirik squinted as the
structure emerged from the mist. He could make out the arched stonework and
bell tower the monks had described as indicative of a Christian holy house. But
as they got nearer still, he noticed that some of the stones and archways were
crumbling and the bell remained silent. Surely their red and white striped sail
would be visible to the inhabitants of this island monastery?