16- Land

Next day Ragnar sat near the front of the boat, hunched over against the biting wind. Bjorn lay beside him, wrapped in the driest cloak they could find, one Ragnar himself had given up. His son's face was pale and drawn, his breathing shallow and faint.

The encounter with the storm had clearly taken almost everything out of him.

Ragnar wasn't looking at Bjorn just then. Instead, he stared straight ahead into the grey, churning fog that offered nothing to see. In his calloused hands, he held the small wooden compass that Bjorn had carved and assembled with such care. The fine metal needle inside trembled constantly with the ship's motion but kept pointing defiantly north.

Ragnar ran his thumb along the smooth edge of the wooden case, feeling the faint indentations where his son's hands had shaped it. He looked from the unwavering compass to the impenetrable fog, then briefly down at Bjorn's still, pale form, before turning his gaze back to the empty grey ahead of them, his jaw tight with a mixture of concern and grim determination.

Behind him, a harsh grating voice suddenly broke through the miserable silence of creaking wood and lapping water. "There is no west," Olaf said with his voice thick with a rising contempt and the bone-deep exhaustion that infected them all. He was a large man, powerfully built, but now his shoulders were sagged. "There is nothing out there but fog and ocean. Endless, cold, bitter ocean that goes on forever."

No one replied at first. The only sounds were the hull groaning against the water and the tired, rhythmic splash of oars from the few men still rowing. But Olaf, his wild red beard beaded with moisture from the fog, pushed himself slowly and painfully to his feet. His movements were stiff, and his face was a mask of growing anger. "We are not sailing toward any new land," he declared with his voice getting louder and rougher, as days of unspoken fear and frustration finally erupted.

Fog condensed on his face, dripping from his beard, mixing with the sweat of his exertion. "We are sailing toward nothing but our graves! We are completely and utterly lost in this endless grey!" Several heads turned towards him with wary expressions. Oars paused mid-stroke with water dripping silently from their blades into the restless sea.

"Kauko... Leif..." Olaf gestured with a hand that trembled, not from cold, but from rage, toward the rowers nearest him. "Can you not see? We have been following madmen and fools! This whole voyage is insanity! And that boy..." He pointed a trembling finger at where Bjorn lay unmoving and silent. "You all saw what he did during the storm! And that rune? Is that natural? hmm?"

"Shut your mouth, Olaf," Thorstein growled from the middle of the ship with his voice low and dangerous, but Olaf ignored him completely with his focus entirely on Ragnar's back. "Trouble follows him everywhere he goes!" Olaf shouted with his eyes wide and bloodshot. "And Ragnar has brought all that trouble, all that bad luck, down on our heads! This entire journey is cursed"

Several of the men shifted uncomfortably while avoiding each other's eyes. Their faces showed the terrible strain of the past few days. The memory of Bjorn's eyes glowing with silver light, of him speaking directly to Thor during the storm as if to an equal, was still burned vividly into all their minds, it was a source of both awe and deep unsettling fear.

"We said shut up!" another voice barked stronger this time, but Olaf's eyes now burned with the wild, reckless desperation of a man who felt he had nothing left to lose.

"I am not the one who convinced good men to trade their lives for a mad dream!" Olaf snapped back, his voice cracking. "It was not me who made deals with trickster gods leading us west into this cursed, fog-bound sea!"

"You are talking madness, Olaf!" one man cried, his voice tight with genuine fear, shrinking back. "Do not anger the gods further with such talk!" another pleaded, glancing nervously at Bjorn's still form, as if expecting him to rise and call down more elemental fury. But Olaf was beyond listening to reason, beyond caution. He stepped towards the center of the boat, swaying precariously on the wet, rocking planks.

He raised both arms toward the grey, indifferent sky hidden by the fog. "We are cursed, I tell you, and this ship is cursed! That boy of yours is not human – he is Loki himself, the god of lies and mischief, come among us in disguise! How else could he speak to Thor as an equal? How else could he command the very sky? How else could he get that Mark?"

Ragnar's voice when it came, was flat and cold. "Olaf. Sit down. And be quiet." But Olaf had gone too far to stop now, his fear and frustration a raging torrent.

His furious eyes fixed directly on Ragnar. "You!" he spat, his voice thick with venom. "You protect him! You talk just like the trickster god yourself, with your smooth words and your impossible promises! Maybe you are Loki, sending us all to our deaths in this watery Hel for your own dark amusement, using that... that thing," he gestured violently at Bjorn's covered form, "as your messenger!"

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I curse the day I ever agreed to follow you, Ragnar Lothbrok! I curse your lies and your son!"

Ragnar carefully, almost reverently, set the small wooden compass down on the deck beside where Bjorn lay covered. Then he rose to his full height. Every movement was slow, deliberate, imbued with a chilling calm. He did not say a word.

Ragnar's hand axe appeared in his grip before most of the crew even noticed him move. He had pulled it smoothly, without a wasted motion, from the leather loop on his belt. The weapon was simple and brutally functional – a heavy wooden handle worn smooth and dark from years of use, with a broad steel head whose edge gleamed dully in the grey, fog-dimmed light.

In one swift, fluid motion, Ragnar crossed the space between them. Olaf, seeing the look in Ragnar's eyes, opened his mouth to speak again, perhaps to shout another curse, perhaps to issue a direct challenge, his hand was starting to move towards his own knife, And Ragnar struck. The axe swept upward in a short, vicious arc, then down with brutal, efficient force.

The blade connected with Olaf's exposed throat with a wet, tearing sound that cut sickeningly through. A thick spray of dark red blood arced across the damp deck boards, splattering onto the sailcloth above.

Olaf staggered backward, and a choked, gurgling sound escaping his lips as his eyes widened in disbelief. He dropped to his knees, his hands flying up instinctively to clutch at his ruined throat with his fingers scrabbling uselessly at the torrent of blood. He toppled sideways, his body convulsing once with a great, final shudder, then lay completely still.

For a long stunned moment, the only sounds were the dripping of condensation from the rigging, the quiet hissing of waves against the hull. No one moved. No one spoke. They stared at Olaf's body, at the dark blood spreading in a widening pool around him, mingling with the deck's dampness.

Ragnar looked down at the corpse for a single, hard breath, then turned away without ceremony. He wiped the blade of his axe against his soaked leather tunic with casual, practiced movements, his face was an unreadable mask.

Ragnar Lothbrok stood alone at the front of the ship, his eyes locked on the unseen distance within the fog. Bjorn's small compass lay near his feet with its needle still pointing faithfully north. "Arne," Ragnar said, his voice regaining its usual tone of command, "Release the ravens."

Arne walked over to the small wooden cage lashed near the mast. Inside, two black-feathered ravens shifted restlessly on their perch. Their dark eyes gleamed with sharp intelligence; they seemed to sense the tension in the air, the raw scent of death.

Arne crouched beside the cage, his hands surprisingly steady as he worked the latch with stiff fingers. The cage door creaked open. With a sudden rush of powerful wings and the sharp flutter of feathers, both birds burst free. They circled the mast once then climbed rapidly, heading west into the vapour.

Their harsh, croaking cries echoed across the water cutting through the silence. Every eye on board followed their flight until they were swallowed by the grey.

Ragnar stood motionless, watching the spot where the black shapes had disappeared. "If they do not come back," he said quietly with his voice clear and firm, "there is land ahead of us." He did not finish the thought, did not voice the alternative that lay in every man's heart. The boat drifted and Oars rested in their locks.

Time passed with agonizing slowness, long enough for the cold grip of doubt and despair to begin to tighten once more in every man's mind.

Then: distant, faint cawing sounds. It was the flutter of beating wings, growing louder. The ravens returned.

They landed heavily on the cross-spar of the mast, their feathers ruffled and damp, their shrill cries sounded frustrated. A few men muttered curses under their breath, their brief flicker of hope extinguished. Ragnar stared up at the birds, his face was showing no emotion.

"They came back," Leif said grimly with his voice flat with disappointment. "No land out there for them to find in this endless grey." The silence that followed was deeper, filled with their failed hope. The weight of their isolation, their seemingly endless, fruitless journey, pressed down on them all.

And then; a shout from the front of the boat that's filled with disbelief. "Seabirds!"

Every head snapped around with hope returning. Arne was pointing skyward with his arm outstretched and his face alight. "Seagulls! A whole flock of them!"

White shapes wheeled and dipped through the upper layers of the fog, their distinctive, piercing cries echoing across the water.

They rode the breeze easily with their wings catching scents, feeling currents that no human sense could detect. "That means land!" someone gasped, the words came out more like a prayer. More gulls appeared joining the first group. Dozens of them. Then more and more, until the air around the ship, just above the densest fog, was filled with many white, circling wings.

The crew erupted and a ragged cheer broke out, then another, growing in strength and volume. Hoarse and shaky laughter with relief echoed across the water.

Men grabbed each other's shoulders and pounding backs with tears of joy on their faces. Rollo, who had pushed himself up to lean against the mast with his burned hand cradled, shouted over the noise, his voice was thick with emotion, "It works! Ragnar, your mad plan actually works!"

Ragnar turned towards the bow of the ship. A slow, wide smile spread across his face lighting his tired eyes. "Row!" he shouted with his voice rising, and it was a powerful shout of command. "Row with everything you have! Row for the west!"

The oars dropped into the sea with a renewed, almost savage strength and purpose. The longship surged forward through the waves with spray flying from its dragon prow. "We made it!" Erik screamed, his voice cracking with joy.

"Ragnar, you did it! You actually did it!" Thorstein yelled.

Floki spun in place on the deck while laughing loudly with his arms waving, his joy was wild. The fog, then, began to lift gradually, as if a great curtain was slowly being drawn. It thinned, shredding into pale wisps that drifted away on a strengthening breeze.

And ahead, though still distant, still partly shrouded in the retreating mist, was the faint, unmistakable dark line of something vast and green. Land. The western lands were real. And they were the first Norse to reach them.

It was during this scene of unrestrained celebration, the sounds of joyous shouts and the powerful rhythm of the oars filling the air, that Bjorn finally regained consciousness. A deep groan escaped his lips as his eyelids fluttered, then slowly and painfully, opened. The world slowly came back into a hazy, disorienting focus: the grey, wet deck beneath him, the sounds of men cheering and laughing, the strong, steady splash of oars cutting through the water.

He could see the happy, tear-streaked faces of the crew members, men pounding each other's backs in celebration, others standing at the rail, pointing and staring westward with wide, unbelieving eyes. His head pounded with a dull, persistent ache. His arms and legs felt cold and were so heavy it was an effort to move them. He pushed himself up on one elbow, the movement a monumental effort, drawing several quick, surprised glances from the nearby crew, followed by smiles of relief and shouts of his name.

Then his gaze fell upon a dark wet stain on the deck planks near the mast, an area that the constant sea spray hadn't washed clean. He frowned, a flicker of deep confusion. He blinked several times, trying to clear his head, trying to focus his thoughts. "Damn it," he muttered, his voice was weak and raspy from long disuse, tasting foul in his own mouth. "Did I really sleep through all of this?"