AN: Here's my birthday gift to you, the potentially oldest version of NorseQuest. This is extremely difficult for me to post as it is cringe
Regardless, please keep in mind that I was a far worse writer when I wrote this.
Godspeed, champions
0~0~0
Halle Þorkelsson — a Karl, a freeman, currently on a viking — was only slightly regretting the life choices that led up to this moment.
Matted straw-colored hair pressed against his head, slicked to his skull by the rain lashing against the deck of the warship. Rain rattled against his shield slung across his back and the helmet strapped to his head. Halle had figured that it would provide some modicum of protection against the torrent. He was right of course. It did slightly protect him from the rain, but it also made one Hel of a racket in the process.
Despite himself, though, Halle couldn't help but admit that he was having a whale of a time.
"Row!" The helmsman roared in between the sounds of thunder as he pounded a rocking tempo on the drums. Bolts of lightning splashed into the waves around them, harmlessly discharging their lethal payloads into the rioting mass of water below.
When standing in the face of certain death, what is a man to do but laugh in it?
Halle laughed as he put his entire body into pushing and pulling that oaken oar. His fingers pressed against wet wood with a manic glee. The oar creaked and groaned in a warning tone as the steady force of the waves beat against it.
A shrill, manic laugh tore its way through his throat as his arms and body burned from the exertion. Is there any other way to live than this? Just you and your brothers against the world!
A sudden splash of spray caught him with his mouth open. Foamy water dripped from his face as he spluttered, never stopping in his rowing for even a moment. He kept in time with the fifty-nine other oarsmen, which in turn were in time with the four other warships sailing towards the shores of a new land ripe for raiding. Halle frowned, while this is an amazing opportunity to increase his orðstírr — his general social standing and the good thoughts and words others have towards him.
From orðstírr came megin — also known as byrr or megin-byrr —, the power that coursed even now through Halle's arms and body as he rowed hard and long. From megin came opportunity and with drengskapr in his heart — bravery and honor and all the virtuous traits — a man can gain ever more orðstírr from seizing these chance encounters for all that they are worth. And then the cycle continues, for ever and ever, until the very moment the Nornar — the three goddesses in charge of the fate of all Norse — decreed to be your death passes by.
All men die. It's not a matter of if or when you die, because no matter what you do you will die. No precaution or defense can stand against the eternal march of time. All men die. It's only a matter of what you do in the time you have.
After all, the only thing left of a man after death is his orðstírr. That is the only thing that persists. And so it's important to have a lot of it so that, when the predestined time comes, you are remembered.
Halle blinked as the sea began to quiet down around him and the rest of the three hundred or so Vikingr scattered across the five ships. The storm gave a couple more light attempts to drive them away, but the heart of whatever sea god rules these parts just wasn't in it.
"Away oars! Get those sails down!" The helmsman shouted and the crew hurried to obey. Halle, given his position in the crew, stood and stretched his weary muscles.
"Halle! To the prow!" Þorgils Leifsson, the Jarl in charge of this expedition, called for his presence at the head of the ship. Halle hurried towards his uncle at the prow as the rest of the oarsmen hustled and bustled around the wide-decked warship. The sails unfurled and expanded, buffeted by a hearty hale. Halle made his way to the front, stepping over a pair of oarsmen collecting unspooled rope that had come undone during the raging chaos of the storm.
His uncle was hanging off the side of the prow, held aloft by hand gripping the open mouth of the wolf carved into the prow. Þorgils shadowed his eyes with a hand as he gazed towards the shoreline in the distance.
"Is this it?" The blonde-haired man asked his nephew as he pulled himself back onto the ship. "Is this that fertile land you sung of when you returned from Grikkland?"
Halle planted a foot on the gunwale as he peered far into the distance. Megin flowed from his stomach to his eyes as he enhanced his vision tenfold, a trick he figured out from long watches in the service of the Miklagarðr emperor. It can be quite useful to be able to examine someone close up from far away, especially when you're watching for níðr assassins, cowards one and all. If you are going to kill someone, do it honorably and to his face, the actions of a worthy drengr!
With his vision sharpened, Halle saw the green shores of this new land. He saw the fields of flowers waving in the distance. He saw the masts of ships in the distance, sailing up and down a nearby river. He saw their destination too, a wealthy-looking town located in a natural harbor nearby the mouth of the river.
Halle squinted and his vision enhanced further, revealing the thick wooden walls surrounding the port from the landside. The walls seemed to be made from thick logs driven into the ground before being lashed together. After which planks were laid across the top of the logs, to provide space for defenders to stand. From this distance, Halle can't determine anything about the craftsmanship of the buildings, other than that this must surely be an important place given how many people live here.
All in all, this looks to be a prime raiding target. At least until they get the lay of the land proper and determine if this is even actually worth anything.
"Aye, this is Cathay. Or at least I don't think this is another Pippardy." Halle nodded and blinked, cutting off the flow of megin to his eyes.
"Even if it is," Þorgils shrugged and his broad, armored shoulders rose and fell, "Pippardy gave us years of booty from only a scant month of raiding." His expression soured as memories emerged in his head. "Though the elephants were horrid, horrid beasts."
"Aye." Halle agreed. Animals were never supposed to have fingers on their faces, let alone be broader than any man laying down and taller than two. Those tusks of theirs were a spectacle as well. But none of those compared to the sheer intelligence behind their eyes. Halle shuddered as he remembered the sickening sound of one of those beasts gleefully trampling through a shield wall. "If Cathay is anything like those merchants described it, we will all be very rich men by the end of this."
The nearby oarsmen who had not-so-subtly been listening in gave a cheer at that. Halle laughed, let it never be said that any proper Norseman would pass up a chance to earn greater wealth and further orðstírr.
The Jarl clapped Halle on the shoulder, laughing as he did. "It's good to see that at least one of us will carry on the family legacy. My father would be very proud of you, were he still with us."
Halle felt a spark of pride surge up in his chest. Ever since he was a boy he'd dreamed of one day emulating the sagas of his ancestors. He was raised on the tales and glory of his grandfather, Leifur Eiríksson, and his expedition to the far-off shores of Vinland. He was weaned on the story of his great-grandfather, Eiríkur 'the Red' Þorvaldsson, the man who colonized Greenland. He even knew the tale of his great-great-great-great-great-granduncle, Naddodd, the man who discovered Iceland!
Halle grew up in the shadows of giants and lived in their massive boots. He wanted the glory, the orðstírr, that came from discovering a new place to raid, trade, and colonize. He wanted his name to echo through the world just like the names of those who came before him. And with this expedition he would achieve that. Pippardy was lucrative, yes, both in wealth and orðstírr, but it wasn't what Halle was looking for. After all, Pippardy has been visited before by the Norse so the tales that came back from the mighty shores of the land of heated food weren't completely unique, not like the tales from Cathay will be.
Halle felt his excitement build. This would be it, this would be his legacy! This is what would make his name echo across the mountains for all time!
And that's when the storm came back without a single warning, the only hint that something was wrong was the thick, cloying scent of níð sorcery hanging in the air.
The storm, now three times the size and strength as before, took the norsemen by complete surprise. A freak wave twice the height of their ship came out of nowhere and struck the side of their ship, hard.
The warship was flung prow over keel from the impact of the wave. The crew of the vessel were either tossed from wherever they were or instantly dead from the shock of the impact. Cargo and crew, both secured and not, fell from the ship as it snapped in half. Splinters showered the falling vikingr as four more waves just like the first hurtled towards the four remaining warships.
Halle himself hit the water backfirst with a splash. He gasped as a shock ran up his spine, instantly regretting it as water poured into his lungs. He coughed and sputtered, thrashing around desperately in the water to stay afloat. Halle was a good swimmer, one of the best in his village, but in the chaos and freakish nature of the storm's sudden return, he might as well have been the boy his father threw into the lake again.
Halle twisted, blinking through water-clogged eyes as he tried to make heads or tails of what was happening. He wheezed heavily as he used his megin to replace the missing air in his lungs.
A plank of wood, splintered on one end, smashed into the back of Halle's helmet. It dazed him for a few seconds, during which he sank slightly in the water. Lightning flashed, striking the water nearby Halle and fried the survivors that had been clinging to a large piece of debris.
Halle shook his head, bubbles of air escaping from his cheeks as he regained his senses. He could stay down here for some time, at least until his megin ran out and he drowned. Halle had a lot of megin, though most of that was from his time as a Varangian Guard and the prestige won through his service there. And that was not nearly enough for his liking, though he doubted he ever would have 'enough'. After all, the worst that can happen is that he dies, so why not be bold and brash and confident? So why not take the uneven odds and risky chances?
More lightning bolts struck the waves and annihilated the larger groups of Norsemen before picking off the smaller clumps in an ordered, systemic manner.
Halle scowled. His braided hair floated around him after escaping the chainmail armor hanging from his helmet. The beads weaved into the blonde strands clinked against his armor.
This was the work of a sorcerer, no doubt. A dishonorable act fit for the most foul of níðingr. Halle had hoped that this land would hold worthy foes to test himself against, but if this is the standard caliber of warrior here? Well, this place could definitely use some Norse to show them the proper way of doing things!
Halle began swimming towards the shore. As he did so, his thoughts turned to his uncle. Þorgils would surely still be alive, there's no way he could be killed by some níðingr! He remembered how, when he was a boy, Þorgils and his father would wrestle and fight for fun in the early mornings and late evenings. The force of their light, playful blows would shake the longhouse! They used to hold competitions to see how far they could throw massive boulders and even warships!
It is said that Þorkell Leifsson, Halle's father, held the record for farthest ship toss at twenty-one vika! Which was around the length of a rost but at sea, which in turn was about a mile. Halle himself could only barely carry a warship a couple dozen steps. The difference being part of a saga makes! Halle wasn't alive for Vinland, but his father and uncle were.
Fuelled by the accomplishments of his kin, Halle pushed the thoughts of his fellow sailors from his mind. This was their time to die, he wouldn't dishonor them by pitying it. At least not yet, not when some still may yet live. Though, in his heart of hearts, Halle knew that none of them had the strength to resist the wrath of lightning.
All the warriors accompanying Halle and his uncle were Karlar, just like Halle, but unlike Halle they didn't have the benefit of seven years in the Varangian Guard to bolster their sagas. The most the vast majority of them could lay claim to would be surviving lesser monsters or winning the hand of a woman with some feat. Not exactly the stuff of sagas.
This was going to be their chance to make a real legend for themselves. A proper saga to build their orðstírr and imprint their names onto the tapestry of time. And none of them would be able to do that now.
Halle's body burned as he finally made it to the sandy shores over thirty vika away from where the storm hit. He fell upon the sandy beach, drinking deep of the sun's warming rays. The storm still raged in the distance, but had stopped thundering and lightninging. Halle had very little megin left after swimming a very, very long distance while in full armor and while burning through his megin supply to keep him from having to surface for air.
Halle wheezed, wanting nothing more than to just close his eyes and sleep in the sun's warm rays. He'd been in the storm for so long he'd forgotten that it was daytime! Though… it wouldn't be day for much longer as it had taken Halle a while to swim to these foreign shores.
And that's when his peace and quiet was interrupted by the sounds of clanging metal and the smell of sorcery in the air.
Halle picked himself up from the sand and checked himself, making sure that everything was where it should be. Fortunately for him, he'd taken good precautions and had firmly secured all his weapons and tools on him during the first storm.
His belt weapons were fine. The simple bearded axe still hung from a loop on his waist and was secured by a leather strap. His sax, his shortsword, still rested in its sheath parallel to the ground, positioned for an easy draw in battle.
His sling was still wrapped around his left forearm, just in case he needed to hit something from far away. Though he'd lost his sack of bullets somewhere in the swim. He'd need to find some more eventually.
His shield, a thick lindenwood creation with a wolfsteel boss — metal infused and enhanced with the spirit of a powerful beast — still hung from his back. Halle wouldn't be too torn up over losing it if it had managed to slide off, after all, shields were made to be used and to be used they must be disposable.
His neck knife was still fine. The comparatively small blade hung from his neck by a length of corded string. It was a fine tool for everyday work, but it could function as a weapon in a pinch.
The armor adorning his body wasn't nearly as expensive as his uncle's own chainmail. Halle wore thick leather with chainmail woven in to protect more vital areas better. His helmet was a relatively simple affair and was likely the most expensive piece of equipment he had as it was entirely metal and had a 'shroud-like veil' of chainmail covering his neck and the bottom half of his face.
Halle, after checking his equipment, hurried up the beach to a small grassy embankment which he crouched behind. With his helmet peeked over the edge of the dirt, he peered into the evening shore.
Sparks showered the grassy ground as two warriors fought a ferocious duel. Halle immediately recognized one of them as his uncle, who had survived the storm just as Halle thought he would. Þorgils' opponent, however, was not someone Halle could lay claim to knowing.
The man was dressed in overly gaudy clothing, fancy beyond belief. Gold was woven into the excruciatingly expensive cloth that looked as if it were made from a spider's web and woven from the freshest of snow. Gems, knuckle-sized rubies, glittered from the buttons of the stranger's clothing. He wore not a scrap of armor, instead he only wore the fanciful, green, white, and red robes adorning his lithe, smooth-skinned body.
The stranger wielded a sword with a small crossguard and two edges. The hilt seemed to be made of a strange white material with gold cords wrapped around the grip. The blade itself was a shining silver that had lightning bolt motifs running up and down the length. They weren't for show either, as sparks erupted from them whenever the stranger connected with Þorgils' shield.
Þorgils, on the other hand, was equipped with significantly more mundane-looking equipment. Mail armor with some pieces of plate he took from a Knight he slew in a raid. A thick shield made the same way as Halle's own shield was. And an exceptionally sharp and dangerous sword that Halle knew could cut through iron as if it wasn't even there. Þorgils was dressed for war while the stranger looked like he'd come fresh from some horribly gaudy party.
If this was the standard of clothing for this place, it was rich indeed.
The two warriors seemed to be mostly evenly matched. Any attempt on the stranger's part to strike at Þorgils was met by the sudden appearance of Þorgils' shield. While the weapon carved into the wood, it struggled to make any meaningful damage come from that.
Þorgils stepped back, avoiding a whip-fast slash accompanied by a booming sound that rattled the ground. It reminded Halle of when an outlaw had ambushed him and his father when he was very young. Halle was too young to completely understand or remember what had happened, all he could remember was that a part of the forest had its trees knocked down, the path had to be remade, and that the world seemed to rattle and shake in terror.
The stranger wasn't anywhere near that level of power. The ground didn't tremble in fear. The air didn't wallow and whimper in supplication. The river didn't divert out of a desire to get as far away as possible. No, the rumbling caused by this man's attacks are mere shockwaves, nothing more and nothing less. Just an effect anyone can do if they hit fast enough.
Of course, having grown up with Halle's father and fought alongside him for many years, Þorgils was more than quick enough to dodge out of the way of an attack that barely broke the sound barrier.
The stranger was far out of Halle's league, of course. Halle could smell the scent of foul sorcery building in the air and Halle could recognize the scent as the same smell that accompanied the storm out on the waves. If Halle were to fight the stranger, Halle would die.
But that doesn't mean a damn thing to him. The Nornar already picked the moment Halle would die and he knows, deep down in the deepest recesses of his heart, that this is not that moment.
Halle drew the axe from his belt and the shield from his back. Rolling his shoulders and lightly stretching, he leaped over the embankment and landed running. His boots carried him over the ground, quickly eating up the verdant grass and spitting it out behind him.
Halle hit the pair of battling warriors with a roar. He crashed into the stranger, bowling him over as his hefty shoulder slammed against the slender man's chest. Halle rolled to his feet just in time to see Þorgils capitalize on the opportunity Halle had given him.
Halle's uncle slammed the iron rim of his shield into the jaw of the dazed and confused stranger, sending the gaudy man stumbling into the sword's follow up.
Somehow, impossibly, the man seemed to twist and the scent of sorcery thickened for a moment as the man more resembled a length of tightly-woven rope made from a person than an actual man. The length of man-rope lunged around Þorgils' sharp cutting edge, but not quick enough to dodge the entirety of it and a piece of rope was shaved off.
The stranger stumbled as he emerged from the rope-form, his clothing torn and ripped and pooling blood. He coughed as he planted his feet in the ground hard enough to leave imprints. He coughed again, this time throwing up a mouthful of blood that splattered against the blades of grass.
"You dare lay your filthy hands on your betters?!" The stranger screeched into the air, the words accompanied by the stench of sorcery that twisted the speech into something approaching understandable. "You are courting death!"
His eyes flicked towards Halle and narrowed in anger. "And you," he pointed with a gashed hand that seemed to cause him little pain, "how did you sneak up on me? I should've sensed your pitiful qi a mile away!"
Halle shrugged and exchanged looks with his uncle. It seemed that they formed the same opinion about this encounter: that it's a strange one and that they won't judge this new land too harshly for it. They'll still judge it, of course, this was a man using sorcery. That was a woman's job! Though, now that Halle thought of it, the stranger does resemble a woman a fair amount. Smooth, pale skin, black hair taken great care of, rosy-red lips, and wide bright eyes.
"Fine then, keep your secrets!" The foppish man shouted angrily, stamping his foot on the ground. "I tire of these worthless cretins and their meaningless games!"
He turned his face towards the heavens, which had clouded over during the duel. Rain began to fall once again, for the third time this day. The stranger's voice picks up, carried by the swirling winds.
"I, Fengbao Wangzi, call upon the powers of the Twelve Gods of Storm!" For the second time in a very short timespan, Halle sees something impossible happen as the now revealed Fengbao Wangzi lifted off the ground and twirled in the air like a delicate dancer. His robes fluttered around him, resembling little more than rags that barely clung to his unmanly body.
[Shi'er Fengbao De Yuzhao Huhuan Zhengyi]
Fengbao Wangzi's words twist and turn, returning to their original tongue as the stench of sorcery grows almost unbearable. It's strong enough to cause Halle to stumble and retch. Þorgils seemed to fare a bit better than his nephew, though he was still visibly affected by the smell.
A flash of thunder was all the warning the Norsemen got before the sky fell on them. Electric blue lightning bolts twisted together, forming a massive vortex of thunder and lightning in the sky. Fengbao Wangzi cackled madly in the sky. His hands were twisted into curled claws as his back sharply arched.
And then the twirling thunder twister began its descent. It raced towards the pair of shocked Norsemen, crossing a third of the distance between them in a blink of an eye. And of course they were shocked, the closest thing either of them had seen to anything like this was during Þorgils's part in the Vinland Saga and Halle's time with the Varangian and neither of those had featured flying lightning tornados being used as weapons.
Cathay is a strange place, Halle thought to himself and then snorted. Death was welcoming him to its hallowed halls and that was what he thought about? He'd barely been here ten minutes and it's already affecting him!
With his final moments, Halle made peace with his death. After all, there's nothing you can do to change the moment of your demise.
A blur of movement, a snap-crack and Halle found himself lying heavily disorientated on the ground. His head spun and he struggled to contain his gorge, if only to avoid throwing up all over the inside of his helmet. He was only dimly aware of the pain the rest of his body was in. His ribs burned and throbbed in a terrible pain while his back felt like it had been snapped in a dozen places. Halle's entire body felt like he'd hit a nerve on something.
With his head still foggy and clammed up by whatever had happened to him, Halle looked to his left and saw something especially… he wasn't sure how to describe it, other than as a frozen sculpture of icen death.
His uncle had his shield up and stood where Halle had been. Halle could smell the frosty mintness of Þorgils' megin in the air, infusing his shield and body with strength and power. Ultimately, though, it was in vain.
The massive spear of twisted lightning pierced through his defenses. It stabbed through his shield, splintering it in two, before punching through his hand and chest. A platter-sized hole sat in his chest, plugged by the still-present lightning spear. Which had, apparently, turned to ice after killing Þorgils.
Halle got the impression that if Þorgils hadn't obviously thrown him out of the way and put every drop of megin into the defense, that there would be a noticeable effect on the landscape around them.
Halle hauled himself to his feet and took a few wobbling test-steps towards his fallen uncle. His uncle's body seemed frozen over, like his skin was half-man and half-ice. Þorgils had done something to the attack. What, exactly, Halle had no idea. Perhaps he would never know, perhaps he is simply too young to understand. All he knew was that it reminded him of home, of Greenland.
And then it shattered. It broke, smashed into a shower of a billion trillion pieces of ice by a careless flick of the finger. Fengbao Wangzi touched down on the scorched grass, a contemplative look on his face. The gaudy stranger bent over and plucked a large chunk of icen-flesh from the ground — Þorgils' eye. He pursed his lips as he examined it before shrugging. He stowed it away in an intact fold of his robes.
It was then that Fengbao Wangzi noticed that Halle was still alive, just as Halle's legs gave out again and he collapsed in a loud clatter. Fengbao Wangzi's head snapped to the sudden sound, focusing on Halle's face, what little of it that was visible beneath his chainmail.
"How…" Fengbao Wangzi looked from Halle to the ice piles then back with a frown on his face. It was clear that he was confused about something, likely regarding whatever it was that Þorgils had done. "You, barbarian!"
Fengbao marched over Halle and plucked his limp body up with a single hand. The stranger was a bit taller than Halle, so it didn't take much to leave Halle dangling over the ground. Halle glowered at the níðingr holding him up, but Fengbao Wangzi paid it no attention.
"Tell me this and I might spare you!" Fengbao demanded, rattling Halle for emphasis. His words twisted themselves through the air again and drilled themselves into Halle's ears. "How did you survive my [Twelve Storm Omens Call for Justice]?"
Halle can smell the power in that name, the magic that shrouded every syllable spoken. But even still, it held nowhere near the same amount of power as it did before. Because of this, it was possible for Halle to understand the meaning behind it.
"I…" Halle replied as he dangled from Fengbao Wangzi's grip. He was held aloft by the collar of his jerkin. "I don't know." He finally forced out as he heard his words be twisted in the air before they reached Fengbao's ears.
"Pity." Fengbao sighed, his head hung low. "I've never liked killing, you know? I really was hoping that you had some inkling. Nevertheless!" Fengbao said, straightening up as his eyes sharpened. Halle then realized that he was being dangled over the edge of a cliff, the movement not even registered in his sluggish, slovenly mind. "I am a man of my word. Goodbye, would-be-raider."
Fengbao Wangzi let go and Halle Þorkelsson fell. Halle hit the water for the second time that day. He heard a crack in his back and felt pain lance up his spine. Immediately after that he knew no more.
