"The Lost Vikings" (closed to AmyRoberts)

The longboat's journey up the slow moving river was to Hagan a sign that the Gods were still with him. Eighteen days earlier, he and 27 men, women, and children left their homes in a fjord town of Jørpeland in Rogaland, Southwestern Norway. They were packed tightly with food, water, caged stock animals, and other supplies aboard just one of 14 vessels heading for England. Their course would have taken them south to the Danish coastline, then west across the open sea.

But only two days out, while still in sight of the Norwegian coast, a fierce storm struck and raged for five days. Although the winds of Spring were normally from the southwest, this storm blew from the southeast, pushing the fleet away from the continent and into the open ocean hundreds of miles away from their original course.

Those steering and controlling the longboats attempted to keep the fleet together, but the waves and the wind simply wouldn't allow that to happen. Hagan watched as three boats were swamped and another cracked open; their occupants were lost to the sea as he watched helplessly.

When finally the skies cleared and the seas calmed, there was neither land nor any other longboats to be seen: Hagan and his people were alone. During the worst of the storm, two men had been blown overboard attempting to keep the vessel together, while a third sustained injuries and died a day later.

But the storm wasn't the end of the horror. Over the course of the next 10 days, the vessel was often left on still waters, the doldrums, and the water ran out. Again, people were dying. Two were lost to dehydration, one of them a woman just weeks short of giving birth. Illness got yet another, and eventually a combination dehydration, starvation, exposure, and despair claimed two more.

Hagan had had but had then lost in the storm the navigational tools that had made reaching and raiding England possible. Without them now, there was no way of knowing whether they were too far north or south in relation to their destination on the English coastline. At night, Hagan studied the stars for clues, but -- to be honest -- navigating by them had never been his forte, nor had it been a skill of anyone else left on the boat.

He was certain that they were almost certainly far north and possibly west of where they were supposed to be and where what remained of the fleet would be as well. When the winds returned, they set sail to the southwest, and two days later the Gods delivered them here to this river that meandered slowly from the west through a thick, lush forest.

Hagan had been to England twice to raid the coastal villages and towns, but he didn't recognize this land by anything other than the vegetation. He was certain it was England, though, it seemed more rugged and mountainous away from the river's edge.

The rising ocean tide behind them nearly negated the river's flow eastward, making rowing easier for those exhausted, hungry, and dehydrated Northmen still capable of doing so. After a mile or so, Hagan ordered the boat to the shore. There was no landing area -- the forest was thick here -- so after Hagan himself took a short swim and climb to the bank. The left side of the boat pulled closer to the bank and tied to trees at bow and stern, then one of the longboat's deck planks extended from the vessel's railing to the shore.

Over then next few hours, as the sun began lowering in the west, tents were strung between trees wherever possible. A deer was killed and a pair of rabbits snared, the three animals roasted over the largest of the fires as other smaller ones were built to provide warmth in the cold, wet forest. The most important resource found was, of course, fresh water; a small spring practically under their feet was found near the river's edge.

By night fall, the remaining 20 Northmen were all very happily asleep and already planning to make sacrifice to the Gods for rescuing them when all hope had been lost.


The next day, the camp was a fairly quiet one. Hagan didn't know where they were, which meant he didn't know who might be near, whether it be his own equally lost and disoriented countrymen or the inhabitants of this land, presumably English Christians.

Scouts were sent along the bank to the west and east, and Hagan himself attempted to venture south, deeper into the forest. The going was rough, and the only good to come out of his own scouting attempt was that he brought back another deer to feed his people.

But the scout who had headed west came back with news: he had found a fish weir; then a foot path; and ultimately a small village that was less than a mile away. The fleet of 14 longboats had been filled with women, children, stock animals, grain seed, and other resources for settling a portion of land the Vikings controlled on the east coast of England. But the people here with Hagan were still Vikings, and Vikings were inherently raiders.

"We are too weak now to visit this village," Hagan decided. "We will wait and watch." He spoke with the warriors and shieldmaidens, as well as with some of the young boys, and they made a plan to keep watch on the village from both the river bank and the forest. "For now, eat and drink and get your strength back."

For two days, they only watched the village from afar. They set up a watch station near the fish weir trail and another deeper in the woods just a few feet inside the thick undergrowth. Hagan himself went to eye the community. There were perhaps a dozen and a half buildings, half of them residential huts and the others work areas, food storage, or animal enclosures.

Initially, Hagan didn't see signs of warriors or other armed defenders. But on the second day of surveillance, two incidents spoke loudly about the village's occupants. Three swordsmen were seen at various times walking about, keeping an eye on the other villagers as if the latter were their servants as opposed to their friends and family; these three men offered nothing in the way of labor that Hagan could see. Then, late in the evening, a young woman -- Hagan would later learn her name was Clara -- got into an argument with one of the three armed men and was dragged into a hut and, by the sounds of it, raped, not just by the one man but by the other two after each of them had come to the hut one after another.

"We will watch this village one more full day," Hagan told the others after he'd returned to their river bank camp, "and then I will make a decision regarding it."

"Our choices?" someone asked.

Hagan considered his answer a moment, then said, "We will either leave them to their fate, pack up the boat, and head back to the sea, to look for our brethren."

"Or?"

"Or," he continued, hesitating because he knew his people were still exhausted and beaten down by what the Gods had put them through. "We will attack this village, kill its warriors, and claim whatever we wish to claim for ourselves."

"And then?"

"And then," Hagan began, unsure of how to continue, "then we will seek guidance from the Gods and do as they tell us."

He really had no and then answer to give at the moment. What he did know was that the village up river was a mini version of what they had come to England to find. Yes, they were alone, just the 15 of them. But other Northmen longboats might paddle up the river in the days to come, or Hagan might learn that they were farther to the south than he believed, very near or even in the heart of the lands controlled by the Norwegian or Danish Vikings.

Or, they might find they were surrounded by English swordsmen and -- fearing annihilation -- would have to put out to sea again and find a new place to dwell.

These days, Kirstin spent as much time away from the Riverbank as she could. Two months earlier, a band of a dozen armed men had taken control of the village in which she'd been born and raised. Kirstin would learn that they had been scouting the village for weeks. Once they'd discovered that its defenses amounted to little more than a handful of men with axes, pitchforks, and hunting bows, they entered the village under the full moon, killed all of the older boys and men, and essentially forced the survivors into forced labor; many of the women and teenage girls were raped as well, with many of those forced into lasting relationships with their new rulers.

Kirstin had avoided violent rape by very quickly befriending the leader of the band and opening her thighs to him. Since then, he had protected her from the other men. Even so, she despised him for all he was and all his men had put her friends and family through. When he left her bed -- their bed now -- in the morning to deal with his daily duties, Kirstin often hurried into the forest simply to get away from him and the other men. She would forage, of course, but more often than not, Kirstin simply wandered about and sought a solution to her people's situation.

That solution would be something Kirstin had never imagined: Vikings.

She was foraging for mushrooms, early berries, fiddle head fern shoots, and a variety of roots for eating and other uses when she heard the crunch of a foot on dry ground debris. She instinctive knew it wasn't a fox or a deer, which meant it was a human. She cringed: Kirstin knew it would either be her lover or one of his men who would like to partake of her without his knowledge.

She stood from behind the tree at which she was collecting -- and her eyes and mouth opened wide at the most frightening sight she'd seen. She froze as the female, obviously a warrior, raised a bow, and drew back an arrow. But the woman didn't loose the missile.

Kirstin for her part screamed, dropped her basket, turned, and ran. Holding the front of her dress up to escape snagging by the undergrowth and downed timber, she moved as quickly as she could. She looked back over her shoulder several times for the woman -- or Ghost or Demon or whatever she was -- and while she often heard fast moving footsteps to her left or to her right, she never again saw the figure who had frightened her so.

Then, after stopping to search the forest behind her, Kirstin turned toward the village once more to face an even more horrific creature. She opened her mouth to scream again, but before she could, a fist found her face; Kirstin went down to the ground.

Ingrid jogged up from the direction in which she'd been herding the fleeing girl toward Eirik. The Christian lay oddly, having dropped almost straight down; her knees were bent before her to one side while her upper body was bent toward the other.

"I think you broke her," Ingrid said, laughing. They ripped off pieces of the girl's undergarment to make a gag and bindings for her hands and feet, then Ingrid looked off in the direction of the village. "I'll carry her back. You go that way. See if anyone heard her. She might not have been alone."

After Eirik helped toss the young woman over Ingrid's shoulder, the two of them went their separate directions. The girl was still out cold when the Shieldmaiden dropped her onto the forest floor in the Northman camp. She said with a playful tone of victory, "I captured our first Christian. What is my prize?"

One of the motherly types, Felda, came to the English woman to check her wound. She removed the gag and cooled the girl's face with water. A bit later Kirstin regained consciousness and immediately screamed. Ingrid was right there, though, quickly pressing a hand over the young woman's mouth while displaying a dagger before her in a threatening manner.

"Shhhh! Be quiet," Felda said in Norse, lifting a finger to her mouth. "Do not scream. We don't want to hurt you."

Kirstin didn't understand the woman, of course, but she responded into the hand covering her mouth. Ingrid waved the dagger again, then cautiously lifted it from the English woman's mouth as Felda repeated, "Shhhh."

"Don't hurt me, please," Kirstin begged. She looked about herself and saw a number of scary looking men staring at her. She begged Felda, "Please, don't let them rape me."

"She does not know your language," Ingrid said in English. "I do. Be quiet. You will not be hurt."

"What do you want?" Kirstin asked. "What do you want from me?"

"Tell me about the village," Ingrid demanded. "Who are those men? They are not your people."

Kirstin told the shieldmaiden all about the men, slowing down and repeating herself when Ingrid indicated she didn't understand what she'd said in English. When Kirstin finished, Ingrid spoke to some of the warriors. One hurried off to find Hagan, while the shieldmaiden ordered two others to keep watch on their hostage.

"Don't rape her," Ingrid told the man in Norse before repeating it for Kirstin's benefit in English. Then, smiling to the woman before leaving, she asked with humor, "Good?"

Hagan was at the longboat when he received the report of the hostage. He finished his conversation there and headed up the bank to find Kirstin laying against a tree trunk with her wrists and now her ankles bound. He gave her a long once over look: she was a beautiful woman, not old, not young; he could easily see her entertaining him in his bed tonight.

He had overheard Ingrid tell his warriors not to rape the woman, both in their Norse and again in the woman's Saxon language. Stepping up so that she could see him as he did it, he asked his most senior and experienced shieldmaiden in English, "Why can they not rape this Christian?"

Ingrid looked to her Chief with an expression clearly telling him that she wasn't sure whether or not he was being serious. When he smiled and winked to her, though, Ingrid laughed. Hagan looked to Kirstin and asked some of the same questions Ingrid had, adding one at a time between her answers, "What is your name...? What is the name of this village...? How many people live here...? Do you have any gold or valuables that we can take, or will we have to take your people as slaves to make rescuing your village worth our while?"

From where she lay on the ground, Kirstin stared up into the face of the biggest man she'd ever seen in her 20 years of life. His height and build made him even more frightening looking than the man who'd surprised her in the forest and knocked her out with a punch to the face.

She would learn that the leader's name was Hagan and the woman who'd brought her in was named Ingrid. The former asked the latter in English, "Why can they not rape this Christian?"

Kirstin's eyes and mouth opened in shock yet again, but she soon enough realized he was only teasing. He asked, "What is your name?"

She hesitated, not sure whether or not telling him was a threat to her. "Kirstin. My name is Kirstin."

"What is the name of this village?"

Again, she contemplated her response before saying, "Riverbank. We call it Riverbank, because ... because it is on the river bank."

She felt silly explaining it like that, but Hagan only went on, "How many people live here...?"

Kirstin most definitely hesitated at this question. Her village had already been captured by a band of murderous, rapist slavers. And those men were Christians! If they could do that to people of their own religion, what would happen to the people of Riverbank if Pagan Northmen attacked and took control of the village?

Hagan continued before she'd decided on how to answer, "Do you have any gold or valuables that we can take, or will we have to take your people as slaves to make rescuing your village worth our while?"

"Please, please," Kirstin begged, holding her bond hands out before her with her fingers interlaced. "Please, the men in my village have killed men and boys and raped women and girls and have taken everything."

Kirstin shifted around until she was on her knees before Hagan. Begging again, she said, "Please, don't hurt my people. I'll do anything you ask."

Then, rising taller on her knees so that she was just inches from the Viking, she said softer in a suggestive tone, "I'll do anything you want."

Hagan couldn't help but notice the sexual implications in the Englishwoman's vow. His lips spread a bit as he imagined her unbuckling and unzipping him and taking his cock into her mouth. Do these Christian women do that? Hagan wondered.

He told Ingrid in Norse, "Take her to my tent. Make her comfortable with drink and food. Put a guard at the entrance, but release her bindings." He looked to Kirstin and spoke in English, "You will be safe here if you do not try to run or alert anyone to our presence. If you do that, I will give you to my men. Understand?"

Kirstin understood, as her reaction told Hagan.

After Ingrid took the woman away, Hagan met with his warriors and shieldmaidens and told them that in the night, they would be attacking the village. They made their plan and sent out fresh scouts, and a couple of hours later -- as the sun dipped behind the forested mountains to the west -- Hagan sent the rest of his armed men and women out to join up with the scouts in preparation for the attack.

"Come with me," Hagan told Kirstin when it was time for him to head for the village. He told her to be silent, then took her down the fish weir path until they were looking at the village. They found Ingrid and Eirik there; both of them were surprised to see Kirstin. They were even more surprised when Hagan told the Christian, "Go back to your village. Make you way to as many of your people as you can. Tell them help is here, but that they must stay inside. They must stay in their homes. Anyone found outside will be assumed to be an enemy and will be killed? Understand?"

He waited for Kirstin's response, then said, "This is the anything you promised me. Do this, and we will free your village of these, what did you call them, brigands? Do this, and you can keep your dress on when next we meet."

Hagan sent Kirstin ahead, watching her until she was gone. They waited an hour, to give her time to alert as many of her friends and family as they could. Then, quietly, the Vikings began closing in on the village from four different directions.

Kirstin listened to Hagan speaking to Ingrid in Norse before he warned her not to be a problem for him; he threatened to let his heathen brethren rape her if she wasn't good, to which she nodded her understanding.

When he had her taken away to a nearby tent, though, Kirstin was left wondering what Hagan intended on doing. He hadn't spoken of intended actions but had only stuffed her away in a crowded tent with a guard sitting in the doorway watching her. Was he attacking her village? Was he not? Was he taking care of other tasks before coming here to rape her, kill her, eat her? They did that, Kirstin had been told; Viking's sacrificed humans and then ate them, raw. Didn't they?

She was brought hot food -- venison stew and fish -- as well as water, but Kirstin could get no answers about what was happening outside the tent. She laid back into a bed at one point and fell asleep. Some time later, after dark had fallen beyond the open door and a replacement guard now watching her, her captors' Chief returned, telling her, "Come with me."

Kirstin was shocked to find out after a short walk toward Riverbank that she was being released. Hagan told her to warn her fellow villagers to stay inside, no matter what they heard outside. "Understand?"

"You are attacking the village," she responded, more of a statement than a question. "You are going to attack the men who have taken over Riverbank."

"This is the anything you promised me," Hagan told her.

Kirstin couldn't help but be simultaneously relieved and confused: relieved because her people were going to be freed from their oppressors and she herself didn't have to become this heathen's sex slave to make it happen; confused because the Northmen really had no reason to do this for her and her people as they had nothing of value to offer the Vikings in return.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, was it? The people of Riverbank had themselves to offer, as slaves. Of course, this wasn't a voluntary offering, but neither had it been when their current armed occupants moved in and took control. But then Hagan told Kirstin, "Do this, and we will free your village of these, what did you call them, brigands?"

"Yes, brigands," Kirstin confirmed. It was a word someone else had coined, a word she'd never actually heard before. But it had seemed to work to describe them. "You will do this for us? Free us?"

"Do this," he continued, "and you can keep your dress on when next we meet."

Kirstin couldn't help but smile. For so long -- not just the past two months but the past four years -- she had been a play thing for men simply because they were men and she was a woman. She'd been relieved of her virginity by a Nobleman who had visited the village not long after she'd begun bleeding; he had claimed to be the Lord over this region and had arrived with armed men to enforce his rule, his order, and his cock upon his people and, of course, Kirstin.

Now impure, she was of no value as a proper wife to any man of wealth in the region. Her father -- in truth, her mother's second husband, who had raised Kirstin since she was 6 years old -- had hoped his step-daughter's beauty and chastity would gain him a dowry. With that opportunity lost, he'd began forcing himself on Kirstin several times a month, continuing to do so even after her mother had learned of his betrayal of her and her daughter.

Her step-father had been killed by the brigands, which had had mixed results in Kirstin's mind for obvious reasons. Of course, she traded one cock for another when she volunteered herself to the attacking band's leader to prevent herself from being offered to the band as a whole.

So, to hear that she was avoiding having another man force himself on and into her was a relief for Hagan. "I will warn the others."

She headed off up the trail from the river, taking her time as she considered what she was going to say if she was spotted by the brigands. She came up with an excuse for her nearly all day absence: she'd gotten injured and then lost. Kirstin dirtied up the hem and front of her dress, then tore it; it was, of course, already partially destroyed where the Vikings had ripped some of it away to make a gag and wrist bindings. Then, dirtying her hands, arms, and face, she covered the remaining fifty yards or more of darkness, feigning a limp and doing her best to whimper.

"Who's there?" an unseen man called out from the darkness. "Say your name or die!"

"Help me!" Kirstin cried out. "I'm hurt."

From the shadows, one of the men she eventually recognized came forth, and she told him her sad story of woe, asking him to help her back to the hut of the village's Healer. He did, then after getting her there, he said he was going to find his band's leader: "He's been looking for you all day, and if you think you're hurt now, just wait!"

The Healer had been raising an orphaned boy since he was young, and Kirstin knew that he was very familiar with which of the village's huts were now occupied with brigands and which weren't. She told him in whispers, "You must visit each house in which there is only our people, and you must tell them they are not to come outside this night for any reason. Do you understand?"

The boy slipped out of the Healer's hut, just before her lover arrived to dragged her forcefully back to her own hut, ignoring her feigned complaints of being hurt. Once at her home, the man commanded her mother, "Get out! Don't return until you know I am finished."

He meant finished raping Kirstin, of course; this wasn't an unknown demand to her and her mother. Kirstin gave in to his demands and suffered through another round of rough intercourse. He eventually collapsed next to her, giving her some instructions for making him even more comfortable: stoke the fire, get more fuel, heat some water, and more.

"I'll be back shortly, m'lord," she said, placating his belief that he was something special. "Rest, I will cook for you and find ale."

Once outside, Kirstin came across the boy, who informed her that he'd warned everyone he could and that her mother -- who he'd also warned -- had said she would warn those households with brigands living in them. Kirstin had at first been afraid their oppressors would get wise of the impending attack.

But in a village so small the two of them quickly came across one another and her mother explained that she had used the excuse of distributing a newly finished batch of ale to draw one villager out of each of the remaining houses to fetch said drink, during which time she warned them.

The stage was set for the Viking attack, with the only question being was it actually coming. Hagan had not told Kirstin when they were coming; she could only assume that they were coming, and that the Vikings hadn't instead used the night to load their boat and row away.

She and her mother returned to their hut, and while her mother huddled in her corner in her bed, Kirstin served her brigand Chief until finally he fell asleep. Quietly, she inconspicuously rose from her bed and moved to lay with her mother, whispering, "We can only wait to see what happens now."

Hagan had never liked waiting for action. He leaned back against a tree trunk, staring at the distant village with his booted feet twitching anxiously in the darkness.

"How do we know that woman isn't telling them we're coming?"

Hagan looked to the warrior questioning him in a soft, cautious voice. He answered simply, "We don't."

Several more minutes passed, and Hagan couldn't wait anymore. He and those with him on the fishing weir trail moved toward the village. To their left, they could see more Vikings move to the forests edge, and down the bank past some simple fishing boats, they could see more. Hagan knew that the last of his warriors and shieldmaidens were out of his sight on the far side, so he hesitated another minute or so for them to understand that the attack was imminent before he gesture all to move forward.

It was Hafdan -- Hagan's cousin -- who was the first to make contact with the brigands. He'd been watching one of the village invaders being orally serviced on a bench against a hut's outer wall as they waited. He hated to disturb the man before he found his joy, but time had run out.

Hafdan slipped up behind the man and slit his throat as Canute grabbed the woman and covered her mouth with his hand, whispering, "Shhhhhh..." into her ear as he dragged her back toward the woods. Canute forced her down to the ground, held a finger to lips, and again urged her to be silent.

But no sooner did the Viking turn and head back into the village did the woman with the skilled lips and tongue scream out loud and began warning, "Northmen! Northmen! We're being attacked by Northmen!"

He probably could have let her go on screaming without her doing any further damage, but Canute's instincts kicked in; he turned and whipped his dagger through the moonlight, the heavy blade pushed by an equally heavy antler-bone hilt piercing her chest and ending her life just seconds later.

The secret of the Viking attack was secret no more, though, not that everyone who had heard the scream truly understood what was happening. The brigands came from all about the village, though, seeking answers to what was happening. And all about the village, the Vikings attacked from the shadows and killed one after another of the previous band of invaders with ruthless efficiency.

The fight was over in less than two minutes. Wanting to put light on the situation, Hagan tossed a torch onto a small heap of dirtied straw that had only just that day been raked out of the goat pen, and soon much of the central area between the huts was bathed in the dancing light of the flames reaching for the sky.

"Out! Out!" he hollered loudly, "Everyone out! Come outside!"

The warnings to remain indoors was having its side effect, though, and while a few faces looked out at the scene, no one emerged from their huts. Hagan and his Clan members began entering huts and encouraging their occupants to emerge, at the end of their swords and blades of their axes.

Soon enough, what appeared to be the entire population was in the open center area of the village. The Vikings had also been lighting torches and returning them to their pole mounts, and by the time the people of Riverbank were assembled -- on their haunches or knees -- in the middle of the village, the community was lit up almost as clearly as if it were twilight.

Hagan found Kirstin and gesture her to join him. He ordered, "Tell them they will not be harmed if they do not resist. Tell them!"

While Kirstin spoke her piece, the Vikings had been dragging the dead brigands' bodies into the open area. Hagan counted -- 10 bodies in all -- and called out, "Is this all of them?" It wasn't. He asked, "Does anyone know where the two missing brigands are?" There was no answer. He looked to Kirstin, asking, "Is your man here amongst these men?" He wasn't. Hagan looked to Ingrid, telling her, "Take you archers into the woods. Look for signs of the two missing men."

The shieldmaiden and three others hurried off to do as ordered, and Hagan told Kirstin, "Tell them to return to their homes. Anyone seen outside during the night will be killed without question. Go!"

The English returned to their homes, and soon the only sounds were the crackling of the burning straw pile and some muted cries from inside a couple of the huts. Hagan ordered the remaining warriors to watch the perimeter. "No one leaves this village tonight, whether brigand or not. We must maintain control until the light."

Kirstin heard the scream from the woods, even recognizing the voice as a young woman who had taken to the brigands a bit more willingly than some of the others had preferred. Kirstin couldn't know yet that the young woman would soon be dead.

Her brigand lover flinched at the scream and rose from his bed. He glared across the hut at Kirstin and her mother, likely wondering why the former wasn't still in his bed. But without question or comment, he leaped up, grabbed his sword with one hand and his boots with the other, and rushed outside to tend to what was happening.

Kirstin herself hurried to the door and watched the events unfolding outside. She heard the roar of the straw pile fire, the clash of steel weapons, the angry battle cries in English and Norse both, and the cries of pain and agony as the peoples of those two languages injured and killed one another.

After what seemed like an eternity but was only a couple of minutes, Hagan began calling, "Out! Out! Everyone out! Come outside!"

The English were hurried outside to the central portion of the village where so much daily activity occurred that the ground had long ago been beaten down to a hard packed dirt surface. Hagan ordered her to reassure the others that they would be unharmed if they did not resist. She did as told, pleading, "Listen to what they say, please. They are not here to hurt us. They are here to free us."

She looked to Hagan and asked softly, "This is true, isn't? Or, have we traded one band of oppressors for another?"

He didn't answer her but instead dealt with attempting to identify whether or not all of the brigands had been killed. Hagan asked Kirstin, "Is your man here amongst these men?"

"No, he's not," she said with despair. She asked anxiously, "Will he come back, or will he go for help? Will he bring others to attack us again?"

Hagan sent some Vikings into the woods to look for the two missing men and ordered the villagers back into their homes. Kirstin and her mother initially did as ordered, but a few minutes later, Kirstin emerged to find Hagan, asking, "Please, may I stay out here with you? I need to know what's happening."

"One got away," Ingrid told Hagan when she returned a few minutes later from the woods. "I found fresh hoof prints on the road heading away. They were only minutes old."

"There should be four horses in the corral," Kirstin informed the two of them. Ingrid hurried off to look, then returned to announce that one horse was missing. She told Hagan, "The missing man, the one from my home, he has a brother in a town three days ride from here. This other man, the brother, he is a Nobleman, with a standing Company of 20 armed men."

With a serious tone, she informed the Viking Chief, "He will come back, with more men than you have."

"They'll be coming back," Ingrid agreed. "They'll be coming back in greater numbers than we just killed, and we won't be able to stop them with the warriors we have or the defenses this village possesses, which are nothing."

"We'll help you," Kirstin said with confidence. When the both of them looked at her, she told them, "Riverbank is our home. They invaded our home and killed our men and raped our women and girls. I ... I don't know if you are any different than them, Hagan. But I can only hope, I can only pray to our Almighty God that you were sent her to save us, and I can promise you this: if you will protect us from these men, we will help you create whatever defenses are necessary. We will fight side by side with you. And in return, Riverbank is yours to control."

"How can you promise this?" Ingrid asked with obvious doubt. "You are but a girl. You have no power or authority here."

Then, with a tone of scorn, Ingrid added, "And you are a Christian!"

"No, I don't have any authority," Kirstin admitted. "But I know my people. And if you will promise to treat them better than we were treated by the brigands, I assure you that my people will work with you. And yes, I am a Christian, and I won't apologize for that. Nor will I ask you, Ingrid, to apologize for being a Pagan. I only ask that you don't abandon us now. We need you. And I think you need us."

Hagan was disappointed to learn that one of the men -- the brigands' leader, nonetheless -- had escaped on horseback. Thankfully, none of his own people had been seriously harmed during the assault.

He was surprised and a bit dubious of Kirstin's confident announcement that her people would work with his people in securing the village. She invoked her one God, claiming that this Almighty being had sent the Pagans to protect the Christians.

"We will fight side by side with you," Kirstin promised. "And in return, Riverbank is yours to control."

Ingrid questioned the young woman's authority and even her commitment to work with the Norse invaders. But Kirstin pointed out something to which Hagan surprisingly agreed. "We need you. And I think you need us."

"Find Hafdan and put him on a horse," Hagan ordered Ingrid. He looked to Kirstin, continuing the orders, "Pick someone who knows the road and the woods and where this brigand might be heading. I would prefer a girl, but if you have none that knows how to ride a horse--"

"I do!" a female voice called out from the dark. The young woman Hagan had seen gang raped by three brigands two days earlier, Clara, stepped out of the shadows, clarifying, "I can ride better than anyone in this village. I will help you hunt this fucking bastard down."

Hagan looked to Kirstin for her opinion, and a few minutes later, Hafdan and Clara were mounted and heading off up the dark road at a gallop. Hagan told Kirstin, "I want everyone to stay inside. Go around. Make sure they all know that no one is to come out until sunrise. Understand?"

He'd already given this command of a curfew twice before, only to have both Kirstin and Clara violate it. He jabbed a finger in Kirstin's face and said, "The next Christian I see outside before sunup if going to find themselves meeting this Almighty God of theirs sooner than they prefer."

He gave Kirstin a minute to move about the village and call out her warning before calling out to his own warriors and shieldmaidens, "You kill anyone not Viking is you see them in the dark."

Turning to Eirik, he pointed to the tiny dock on the bank below the village and said, "I want half of you sleeping, resting up, and the other half watching the village and the woods. We are missing two of Kirstin's brigands, and I don't want them slipping in here and slitting our throats like we did them. Then, in the morning, I want you to head back to the camp with a few men. Begin packing up the boat. I want it here at this dock, and I want us to begin figuring out how we are going to protect this place."

"Are we staying here?" Eirik asked with surprise. "We are not going to look for the other boats?"

"No," Hagan said simply, before telling Eirik, "Get a couple of hours of sleep, my friend."

Clara was more than happy to jump on a horse in the middle of the night and help chase down the brigands who had been terrorizing her village and, of course, sexually abusing -- even raping -- her for the past two months. Even though she hadn't told anyone yet, Clara was fearful that she was with child by one of her abusers.

Hafdan arrived a couple of minutes later on one horse as he led another behind him. Clara smiled up at the man; she found him very attractive, and despite her history with men, she was already thinking about getting naked with him sometime in the near future. She got a leg up onto the second horse, turned it, and before kicking the horse in the flanks and shooting forward, she laughed and said with humor, "I hope you can keep up with me."

Kirstin couldn't help but laugh, which she almost immediately realized felt a bit inappropriate as she was surrounded by dead men and the men who'd killed them. "Clara knows the road, m'lord. Do I call you m'lord? I heard others call you Chief, but one of the women said something that that women warrior, Ingrid, she translated it as Earl but then said you weren't that, yet. Anyway, Clara knows the road. She's been to town a couple of times, and before the brigands, she used to go with her father and brother to trade in some of the other villages."

"I want everyone to stay inside," Hagan said after the riders were gone, telling Kirstin everyone needed to stay inside. "Understand?"

She caught his tone and knew why he was stressing it so. She said she did understand, then went around the village repeating his demand. She was just rounding one of the huts as Eirik was asking Hagan, "Are we staying here? We are not going to look for the other boats?"

After he sent the other warrior off to sleep, Kirstin again approached Hagan, apologizing for once again being out in the dark. "May I ask...? Why are you here? In Northumbria? Alone? There are others? Other boats, other Northmen? Why are you not with them? And, are they coming here, too?"

She was trying not to seem concerned or afraid that the Vikings might be staying long term. But Kirstin wanted to know.

Hagan was inspired by Clara's pluck in volunteering to chase down the brigand and wondered whether she could be trained to be a shieldmaiden. Clara asked how Hagan how he wanted to be addressed, and he responded, "Chief Hagan."

He was determined to have the villagers begin their relationship with him understanding that he was most definitely in charge. The Vikings didn't typically mix with the English when the former settled into the latter's lands. The normal process was that the Pagans ran the Christians out, with or without bloodshed, and then took over the land without English presence or involvement. If there were English still present, they were so as slaves, not fellow villagers.

But Hagan hadn't left Norway for England to take and hold slaves. He wanted to secure some fertile farming land and begin a life of peace and harmony, and that didn't typically include enslaved persons.

When Kirstin appeared yet a third time, Hagan asked, "What part of stay inside did you not understand?"

She ignored his chastisement, inquiring, "May I ask...? Why are you here? In Northumbria?"

"We are here to settle, to farm," he told Kirstin. "England is a beautiful land, with thick forests and lush pastures and fertile river bottoms. It has minerals, ores, gold, silver. It is beautiful, and wealthy."

But Kirstin had wanted to know more, continuing, "Alone? There are others? Other boats, other Northmen? Why are you not with them? And, are they coming here, too?"

Hagan wasn't sure how to answer this question. If he said there were no other Vikings on their way to this river, to this village, the English might believe that the Northmen could be easily overcome. On the other hand, if they thought more Vikings would come in the days or weeks to come, they might think Hagan and his small Clan should be eliminated even sooner, to prevent them from gaining a defendable foothold on Riverbank.

"We were separated in a storm," he told her, deciding that honestly was better. "They will come some day soon, I am confident. But, not today. Today, it is just us. And today, you are going to your home and staying inside!"

The next morning:

"I am nothing more than 20 year old women, yes," Kirstin confirmed as she stood in the bed of a two wheeled cart in the Village Center, defending her argument regarding the future of Riverbank. "I am not a Lord, because I am not a man. I am not your Lady, because I am not a Noble."

A handful of people called for her to step down and shut up, while others called for the first bunch to shut up and listen. Kirstin tried to wave the mayhem down to a low roar, then continued, "But it was I who convinced the Vikings to help us in ridding Riverbank of the ruthless brigands who--"

"Yeah, yeah! We know what they did to us!" a louder voice cut her off. "What we want to know is what are these Pagans going to do to us!"

Another uproar erupted: on one side were those saying that the Vikings here today had saved Riverbank and not hurt a soul, while the other side argued that it was just a matter of time because they were Godless Pagan heathens.

One of the only adult males left in the village after the brigands slaughter two months earlier asked in a loud but civil voice, "Tell us, Kirstin, what are the choices? You have reminded us of what the Northmen did for us last night, but you haven't been clear on what they want from us and what they will take or do to us if we tell them to go away."

The crowd again got noisy, but enough people shouted down the loud mouths that the crowd surrounding Kirstin was as silent as it had been since the Vikings took a walk down to the water's edge to give the English time to talk without them listening. In reality, Ingrid had slipped away and hit inside one of the huts to listen to the conversation.

"If we tell them to go, to leave Riverbank and not come back," Kirstin began, hesitating as she knew what the response was going to be, "Hagan, their Chief, has assured me that they will leave without violence--"

Immediately, a significant part of the community immediately made their decision that that was the right choice to make, even before Kirstin finished with, "--however...! However, they will leave with anything and everything they can load up in their boat and in our boats."

Again, uproar, which settled a bit to allow Kirstin to add, "The Northmen have nothing: no food, no water, no ale, no horses. They have very little seed and they ate all of their stock animals while adrift at sea."

More outrage, with Kirstin pushing on, "If we send them away, send them off into a world they don't know ... listen, if you were them, if you were Northern raiders and pillagers and murderers, what would you do if they sent you away? You'd kill half of the village, enslave the others, and take everything of value."

Now, while some of the crowd continued to argue that the Vikings must go and without pillaging, much of the crowd had contemplative expressions on their faces. Kirstin took advantage of this by continuing, "And even if they did not take all we have, the brigands are coming back! We know this!"

Hafdan and Clara had returned just before dawn to tell Hagan that the man they'd been pursuing had left the road to travel through the forest, and that after less than a mile, they had lost the trail when a downpour washed away his mount's hoof prints along the river bank. The man may have believed he was being trailed and may have even crossed the river; there was no way to tell.

"However, however...!" Kirstin continued. "If we permit the Northmen to remain, they will help us build defenses. They will train us to fight. And they will fight with us! Some of you watched the fight through your doors and windows last night. You saw how the Vikings killed our oppressors without taking a casualty of their own. You like to call them heathens, and maybe they are. But last night, heathens were just what we needed."

The conversation continued on for another good half hour, during which Kirstin dismounted the cart and walked around, speaking to people but mostly just listening. From what she was hearing, roughly half the community wanted to invite the Vikings to remain while half wanted them to go, even if it meant forcing them and risking more deaths amongst their numbers.

"And who is going to fight them?" Kirstin asked the partially crippled man who suggested that. "You? You can barely walk. Your wife? Your pregnant wife? How about your 7 year old daughter?"

She seemed to get a couple of more onto her side with that short conversation. But even as she heard more and more people arguing that the Vikings should remain, she was picking up a clear sign that even the pro-Viking crowd clearly did not trust the Northmen and were convinced that the uninvited guests would have to leave at some point.

Introducing "Brother" William

Brother William had been listening to Kirstin and the others in silence from the open entrance of the village's little church. His arrival early this morning -- by row boat -- at this important moment in time had been entirely coincidental; his water and land circuit took him to more than two dozen villages and small towns that were without their own residential Holy Man. Riverbank had simply been the next on his route.

As a preacher and teacher of the Holy Book, William had been alarmed to learn of the presence of the Northern Pagans. His last visit had been before the arrival of the brigands, so he'd missed that period of woe entirely. As he listened to Kirstin speak in favor of the Vikings remaining and to many of the other in opposition to it, he was caught up on the events of the past two months and the past two days by a woman who -- despite William's vows of celibacy -- brought him great sexual joy on his three or four times per year visits to Riverbank.

When Kirstin descended from her speaking perch atop the cart, William took the opportunity to speak his piece. He moved to the cart and leaped gracefully up into it. The whole of the community went silent as one after another, the villagers became aware of his presence. There was an exchange of blessings and good tidings both from and toward William before he began with, "Our sister Kirstin is correct. The Pagans must be welcomed into our community."

The reactions were mixed, with some of his Christian flock arguing against his opinion, others practically gasping at it, and still more simply staring at him, waiting for more clarification. He repeated much of what Kirstin had said, only with far more references to God and Jesus Christ interlaced with the statements and questions.

"God sent us these Pagans," he stressed. "They did not come here as raiders, murderers, rapists, and conquerors. Not this time! God sent them to us as liberators and protectors. To send them away, to repel them, would be a rejection of God's will. It would be a sin!"

The populace of Riverbank suddenly shifted their tone, and slowly but surely, the majority of the villagers were nodding their heads and expressing opinions that the Vikings were a good thing for their village. William said, "I am not of your village. I am only a wandering Messenger of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. I can not tell you which decision to make, nor will I praise or condemn any decision made by the people of Riverbank."

He looked to Kirstin, who had been listening to him and, it seemed, gauging his audience's reaction. He smiled to and winked to her, then came down to the ground once more. Many of the villagers went to him, praising him, holding his hand, in some cases kissing his ring, which was entirely inappropriate as he was only a simple Monk and not even a devout, pure one at that. But he accepted the favor of the people and continued talking to the one after another about the Vikings and other topics as he made his way toward Kirstin.

"You need to request a vote, right now, Kirstin," he told her quietly. "You need to finalize a decision while they are still whipped up."


Hagan had been watching the scene in the Village Center from a couple of dozen yards outside of the cluster of buildings. He could hear some of what was being said, but it was the mood that was more important than the words. Ingrid, of course, was hiding in one of the huts, and while her English wasn't the best in the world, she would be able to fill Hagan in on some of what he'd missed.

It was obvious that many of Riverbank's people didn't like the prospect of the Vikings remaining permanently or even semi-permanently. They didn't like the idea of the heathen pillagers cleaning out their village of much of its valuable resources either, though.

Kirstin dismounted from the cart and was replaced by a man Hagan didn't recognize. He had the look of a religious man; the English called them Monks on the village level Hagan believed. After he spoke and dropped to the ground, too, Kirstin was again on the cart and calling for the populace of Riverbank to vote on keeping the Vikings or sending them away. There was nearly an hour more of discussion about details of either direction before people were told to move to one side if they wished the former and to the other side if they wanted the latter.

The movement of bodies ended, but from his location, it was impossible for Hagan to know what the result of the vote was. But then, a moment later, Ingrid came running from the hut in which she'd been hiding; she'd used her sword to cut a wood upright, allowing her to slip through the thatch that reached almost all the way to the ground on this particular structure.

When she arrived before Hagan, Ingrid smiled and said, "They voted to let us stay. But only by a slim margin, and only with some restrictions." Hagan asked what the restrictions were, but before she answered, Ingrid looked back to the village and caught sight of Kirstin coming. She looked back to Hagan and said, "Ask her."

Ingrid was supervising the unloading of the longboat after its move up the river when she caught sight of another boat coming down the river. Her first instinct was to sling her bow off her shoulder and notch an arrow, as well as alert the others around her.

But rather than see more boats filled with attackers, Ingrid saw only the one man, Brother William, and almost immediately she understood him to be one of the Christian people's Holy Men. Again, she consciously felt the bow and arrow in her hand, wanting to send the latter at the man, piercing his heart and spilling him into the river's water.

Ingrid had reasons for hating the Christians -- and their Holy Men in particular -- that went beyond the simple but distinct differences in their religions. On her first visit to England, she had lived in a Northumbria settlement for over a year and a half, Spring of one year to Autumn of the next. She had thought England was going to be her new home; she had begun learning the language Christian Holy Man-in-training, a novitiate he had called himself; and -- because he was not yet restricted by holy vows -- she had begun a sexual relationship with him that had resulted in her one and only pregnancy, which had tragically ended in miscarriage just as she'd begun to feel the bump in her belly coming to be.

Before she'd lost her baby, Ingrid had told her lover she was carrying his child, and he'd rejected her and it without hesitance. She would learn that he had had no intention of remaining with her long term, let alone marrying her and becoming the father of her children. He had told Ingrid that his love was reserved for God and could not be shared with a woman, "Particularly a Pagan woman from the heathen north, invaders, who bring their foul and ungodly ways to our shores where they--"

That was as far as he'd gotten; Ingrid had been within reach of a dagger, and in her rapidly rising state of anger and disappointment, she'd snatched it up and slashed it across her lover's throat. He died there on the floor of her hut, and -- possibly due to the stress of the depression she was feeling -- the baby died three days later.

And now, this second Holy Man was carefully rising out of his little boat to the dock and walking with confidence toward Riverbank's Village Center, seemingly without fear or concern that a Viking longboat had been tied to that same dock or that a Viking woman had been mere seconds from putting an arrow through his chest.

She followed behind him, watching the reaction of Hagan and the others at the perimeter of the village as the cloaked man walked by. Ingrid's Chief had known of her relationship two years earlier, and his expression when he looked to her told her of his concern for how she was feeling at this moment. When she stepped up next to him, Ingrid only told Hagan softly but meaningfully, "I didn't kill him on sight. I guess that means something."


Kirstin was shocked when she caught sight of Brother William at the edge of the village. He hadn't been in Riverbank since before the brigands took control of it, and -- honestly -- she'd assumed he heard of the occupation and had removed her village from his circuit.

She found herself smiling wide with delight as he supported her position regarding the Vikings, and when he came to her and suggested she hold an election immediately, she thanked him and hurried back to the cart once more. She called out over the still arguing crowd, "We need to vote! We need to make a decision, a clear decision, on whether the Vikings are invited to remain or not. Everyone who wishes for the Northmen to remain, move over--"

"No! Not so fast!" a man hollered, echoed by others who also were not ready to simply cast a yea or nay vote on the issue.

The conversation went on for what seemed an eternity for Kirstin, but finally a majority of the Riverbank villagers were ready to cast their vote. Kirstin again gestured, "Everyone who wishes for the Northmen to remain, move over to that side. Those against, move over there."

Although some of the villagers had previously begun to congregate closer to those who were somewhat like minded as they were, a great deal of movement still occurred below Kirstin. And as that movement occurred, some villagers confronted others verbally, even physically, as they realized who was about to vote how. But eventually, with some calming words from Kirstin, Brother William, and others, the crowd was split into two with a gap of several feet between them.

Kirstin was surprised at how close the vote was. She begged her people to hold still so that she could count heads. It had been agreed during the earlier negotiations that the children counted as a vote, too, because they would be affected by this decision just as much as their parents, who -- of course -- were the ones deciding for them. Kirstin called out, "Please, put your children if you have them before you, so that I can see them and properly count them."

As Kirstin counted from atop the cart, Brother William did the same from the ground and from the other direction. When he reached her, Kirstin said, "I count 28 for letting the Vikings remain, 22 against."

"As do I," the wayward Monk said.

Others had been trying to count heads from their own positions, and even before Kirstin confirmed the vote, a murmur was becoming another battle of words. Loudly, she announced, "The vote is let the Vikings stay, 28 for, 22 against."

There was mayhem below her, which Kirstin, Brother William, and some more respected members of the community tried to calm. She called out over the din, "Please! Return to your homes or to your work. The decision has been made. The Northmen stay. Go home. Go home!"

As the crowd began to disperse, Kirstin thanked Brother William, then looked between two huts to the awaiting Vikings. She calmed herself, then headed their way. Stopping just a couple of yards from Hagan, she smiled a bit and announced, "The people of Riverbank have voted to let the Vikings of Norway remain."

There wasn't exactly the reception or response Kirstin had expected. Of course, she didn't know that Ingrid -- after having trailed Brother William up from the bank -- had slipped into a hut and listened in on the debate, then reported the results to her Chief.

"There are conditions, though," Kirstin went on. Again, she was curious about the lack of a reaction from the already informed Hagan. "First, your people are to live apart from mine."

She gestured to the land that was off to the right of her -- Hagan's left -- between the existing village and the river. It was a combination of wild pastureland and thin, scattered brushland, from which many of the trees had been harvested for firewood and construction of the Church years earlier. "You may live there, between the river to the north, the creek to the west, and that ridge to the south. It is good land on which you can build homes, grow crops, and raise animals."

It was, as Kirstin said, good land. It wasn't as good as that on which Riverbank sat, of course, but the latter's land had been worked and reworked for generations to make it what it was today. She went on, "You will help us build defenses around the village, our village, and we will do the same for yours."

She smiled as she explained, "It won't serve the Christians of Riverbank for you to build protections for us if you then get killed because you yourselves are unsafe."

Kirstin looked behind her to the vast, relatively flat field that had only recently dried enough to allow plowing. "If you will provide half the labor for tending the fields, we will give you half the harvest. However, in the past, a portion of our harvest was sold at market in Horncliffe to purchase things we cannot produce ourselves. Think of it as taxes we place upon ourselves. You would have to provide your share of the taxes as well."

There was a bit of a milling and murmur amongst the Vikings at this, but Kirstin didn't get the feeling that this was a stopper, so she continued. "We would ask that your people learn our language."

Ingrid had been translating for the present Northmen who didn't speak English, and this caused a reaction to which Kirstin quickly added, "It makes sense! You are in England now. You and your people, all of your people, should know the language of the land."

There was more back and forth conversation between the Vikings, as well as some dirty looks aimed at Kirstin, but she tried to maintain herself as she went on, "And if you would be kind enough to teach us, some of us would like to learn your language as well."

That wasn't entirely true; no one had specifically asked to learn the Norse language. But Kirstin had an interest herself, and Brother William had already told her that he spoke a great deal of it, something that had been a big surprise to Kirstin as she had no idea that his circuit included some of the Norse villages further south on the coast.

"Lastly!" Kirstin called out over the continuing but low volume conversation taking place between the Vikings before her. She hesitated to speak after she'd gained their attention, then looked directly into Hagan's eyes before delivering what she was sure would make everything that had come before this moot. "Lastly. You must convert to our religion, Chief Hagan of the Rogoland Vikings. Not everyone; not all of your people. Just you."

Kirstin looked to Ingrid, expecting her to translate the demand to others. But the shieldmaiden simply stared at Kirstin with a blank expression, shocked by the request that her leader abandon his religion for that of the English. From her earlier hiding place in the hut, Ingrid had heard the discussion about religion, but she hadn't understood the small portion about conversion. Now she did, and she simply didn't know how to react.

Kirstin looked to Hagan and clarified with an almost pleading voice, "My people do not feel that they can feel safe living side by side with Pagans who, in the past, have attacked our Christian brethren up and down the coastline simply because we are in fact Christians and you -- they -- were not."

She tried her best to ignore the others as she stared into Hagan's eyes for some sort of response other than his stone faced look back at her.

Hagan had, of course, been expecting Kirstin to begin listing her conditions. "First, your people are to live apart from mine."

He followed her gesture toward the land along the downstream riverbank. It was good land, perhaps a bit rocky and not nearly as level as the land already being farmed by the English. But it could be cleared and worked to produce root crops and grains in a single Spring, enough to prevent the Vikings from starving or having to raid their neighbors for food, both here in Riverbank and farther beyond.

"You may live there," she went on, "between the river to the north, the creek to the west, and that ridge to the south."

As Kirstin continued, Hagan imagined a large dock in the river that could handle their longboat's comings and goings; a small dam and reservoir on the creek that could power a water wheel for milling grain or even operating a saw for cutting timber; and a watch tower on the ridge that could overlook not only the Viking's village and the Englishmen's village but the river for possibly as much as a mile each direction once some of the river's edge trees were harvested for construction.

"You will help us build defenses around the village, our village, and we will do the same for yours," the young but confident woman went on. "It won't serve the Christians of Riverbank for you to build protections for us if you then get killed because you yourselves are unsafe."

"It will take more time, labor, and resources to build ditches, barricades, even walls to protect separate villages," Hagan pointed out. He could see in her reaction that she'd already considered that. "If we placed our villages side by side--"

But that didn't go anywhere. The Christians of Riverbank had agreed that the only way the Pagans could stay was with a no man's zone separating them.

She spoke of dividing the work on the land already in agricultural production, but Hagan pointed out immediately, "Your people vastly outnumber ours. It will be very difficult for us to provide half of the labor to work the land."

Ingrid had again been translating, and Hafdan spoke up in Norse with a demanding tone, "We saved these people, we freed their village, we risked our lives while they hid trembling in their huts. And we will continue to protect them, these women and children and old, feeble men when that man comes back with more men."

Hagan listened to his cousin, relayed a bit of what he'd said in English to Kirstin, then negotiated, "We will provide a quarter of the labor in the fields and take responsibility for the security -- all of the security -- of both villages, in exchange for half the harvest and no taxes."

He saw in the young English woman's face that she was already fearing having to take this back to her people. Hagan stressed firmly, "This is not negotiable. We are taking the risk. We are putting our lives on the line to protect you and your children and your homes. We cannot do that and farm, too."

Hagan silenced his people with a wave of his hand at the topic of the Norse learning the English language. "We will gladly learn your language," he told Kirstin. Then, to his own people in their own language, he said, "When two Christians are standing near and they are discussing which one of them should keep you distracted while the other sneaks around behind you and sticks a dagger in your back, won't you feel silly that you didn't take the time to learn their language?"

There was a bit of laughter, even though some of the stick-in-the-muds only glared or mumbled their lack of enthusiasm for the idea. He told Kirstin, "We will be happy to teach you our language."

"Lastly!" Kirstin called out. "You must convert to our religion, Chief Hagan of the Rogoland Vikings. Not everyone; not all of your people. Just you."

Hagan's face was filled with the same blank expression as the other English speaking Northman was. Kirstin spoke more about the reason for the request as Hagan and Ingrid looked to one another questioningly. He said to his shieldmaiden softly in Norse, "It might just be easier to kill all the Christians now and take over Riverbank."

But as Kirstin finished speaking, Hagan told her firmly, "I will not convert to your religion. Not now, anyway. I will speak to you again about this when the harvest arrives." He studied her reaction, then shrugged, which had been a habit of Hagan's since he was a child and often didn't know the answer to a question or didn't want to make a decision on a topic. "That is what I offer you, Kirstin of Riverbank. My people celebrate the harvest in our own Pagan ways, and to not do so, for me to not participate in this ritual would mean disaster for my people."

Hagan looked to Ingrid, who was still silent and not translating the conversation for fear of how it would affect the other Pagan heathens. He looked back to Kirstin, telling her, "After the harvest, if all is well..."

He hesitated, unsure of whether to make a commitment now. Making it did not mean keeping it, of course. But when his fellow Northmen learned that he was contemplating abandoning their Gods in favor of the Christians' one God, it would cause troubles he was not wanting to face at this time.

He finished without committing, "...then I will again speak with you seriously about accepting your God and forsaking my own. That is the best I can offer you. Take it back to your people, and we will await your decision in our camp."

Hagan turned without giving Kirstin an opportunity to counter the counter. The others turned and followed behind him, many of them giving the young English girl a last glare. Ingrid was the last to depart, possibly having something to say, possibly only wanting to stare down the Christian girl, who could know?


The majority of the Viking adults had followed Hagan to the land that had been offered them to have a discussion -- sometimes an argument -- about the details of it all. Some were very pleased with the offer, which came without bloodshed; others wanted to know why they weren't simply killing or enslaving the Christians and taking their village and its better farmland for themselves.

"We still may," Hagan said at one point, causing the others to look at him with varying levels of surprise. But then he only smiled and said, "But not now. Now we will work with the Christians to make Riverbank safe and secure and as good a home for our people as it has been for their own."

They spoke of where the longhouse would be constructed. It would initially serve as home to the entire Viking population of 20 men, women, and children. It would also have served as home to the stock animals during winter if the beasts had not all been eaten during the time the Vikings had been adrift on the ocean.

It was almost four hours later before Kirstin -- accompanied by the Priest who had arrived today -- returned to Hagan and the others who were still inspecting the land with them. Kirstin introduced Brother William, who immediately expressed his delight in Norse at the privilege of meeting Chief Hagan and his people.

"Kirstin took your terms to the people of Riverbank," William began, speaking in place of the young woman as what he had to say affected her a great deal. He looked to her, then back to Hagan before continuing, "Regarding the labor in the fields and the protection of the villages. The people of Riverbank agree to your terms with one change. They do not feel that their people should bear the weight of the taxes for general village needs -- including many needs that will serve your village -- in perpetuity."

He glanced to Kirstin again, then continued speaking to Hagan, "They offer to release you of the tax burden for as long as you are providing the majority of the security for Riverbank, while asking you to teach them, to train them, in how to protect themselves. These people have no warriors, no weapons. Their men were all killed, for the most part. But men will come. Englishmen will come to the village looking for wives and land to farm, and when they do, you will train them to protect their new homes and their new families. And when the day comes that they feel they can defend themselves without your assistance, you will begin paying your taxes, just as they have been and will continue to do."

William went silent, staring at Hagan for his response. When the Viking Chief did speak, it was a simple reply: "Done."

William was kind of shocked at the ease with which he'd secured that agreement, and looking to Kirstin, he thought maybe she was surprised as well. But perhaps her expression was more about the next topic on which he was destined to speak. He met her eyes, whispering, "Am I supposed to do this? You can reject this."

But the decision had been made by the village's more senior and more important members, so William looked to Hagan and -- after drawing, holding, and then exhaling a calming breath -- he said, "And there will be a marriage. Two actually. The Elders of Riverbank feel that there Christian population and your Pagan one would be more closely tied and, therefore, bound by peace and prosperity, if you, Chief Hagan, were to marry one of our women and one of our men were to marry one of your women."

That got a reaction from Hagan and Ingrid, both of whom were English speakers, of course. But before either had a chance to speak, William went on, "Chief Hagan, your ceremony can be held per the rituals of your religion as you wish. But the second marriage will be conducted by our traditions, in the sight of our God, in our church."

Before even considering the method of the union, Hagan asked, "And just who is the bride of mine?" He actually had a pretty good idea who had been picked for this honor, and just as he glanced toward Kirstin, the Priest did the same.

"You will marry Kirstin of Riverbank," William said. "She has accepted the will of her people to be your wife, on the condition that she be allowed to continue onward as a Christian and not be forced to partake of your Pagan religion and on the condition that any children produced by your union be raised in the Christian faith."

William looked to Hagan and said firmly in words Hagan himself had used earlier, "This is not negotiable."

Hagan studied Kirstin for a long moment, then -- despite what he'd just been told -- negotiated, "I accept this marriage arrangement, but my first son, my heir, will be raised in the faith in which I, myself, am following at the time of his birth."

William didn't immediately understand what Hagan meant, then it dawned on him. "If you have converted to Christianity by then, he will be raised a Christian."

"Yes," Hagan said, his eyes still on Kirstin. Then, he turned and looked at Ingrid and said firmly, "And my trusted and honored shieldmaiden will wed a man of your Christian village."

"Am I supposed to do this?" William whispered to Kirstin regarding announcing the marriage topic. "You can reject this."

Kirstin hesitated, then shook her head lightly. She was committed to this. She'd been shocked -- horrified even! -- when one of the older, more respected men of Riverbank suggested that there not only be a binding union of marriage between the Viking Chief and a village girl but that that girl should be none other than the woman who had essentially brought the Vikings to Riverbank, Kirstin.

She'd resisted the idea at first, of course; she was being given away to a Pagan heathen in exchange for peace and security. But then, that was not that uncommon in English society: their own King had taken his enemy's daughter as his wife, and when she died in childbirth less than a year later, had taken her younger sister as a replacement.

"You will marry Kirstin of Riverbank," William answered when Hagan asked who his intended was to be.

Kirstin's eyes had been on the ground between her and Hagan until now, but now she looked up into his own eyes, feigning confidence and strength while inside she was fearing that her eyes would soon glaze over and spill tears down her cheeks. The two men spoke of how her and Hagan's first child would be raised religiously, and when her future husband said firmly that his heir would follow in his footsteps regarding religion, Kirstin said just as firmly, "I agree to this."


Ingrid's brain was awash with thoughts regarding what was taking place here. She agreed with some of it, disagreed with much more, and was shocked or confused by a little bit of both. But when Hagan announced that she would be the Viking female to marry a Christian male, there was only shock and no confusion at all about that.

She immediately told Hagan that wasn't about to happen, laughing in surprise that he would even contemplate such a thing. But he argued that it made sense as she was the only other fairly fluent English speaker amongst her people and the only female who was. Then, he essentially reminded her that he was her Chief and that this deal had to be made for the future of her people.

She looked to William, to Kirstin, back to Hagan, then to the English once more. She said firmly, "I accept. I will marry a Christian man from your village, Kirstin of Riverbank. But...!"

She looked to the man standing beside her and said just as firmly, "I will only do so if Brother William is the man I marry."

That brought some reactions, as she'd expected, but Ingrid used the words previously deployed by Kirstin, William, and Hagan at one time or another: "This is not negotiable."

Ingrid said about the betrothal being forced upon her by Hagan, "I will only do so if Brother William is the man I marry."

William laughed aloud, then realized that such an outburst might be misinterpreted by the Vikings and, in particular, the woman whose demand had led to it. He explained, "I am a man of God, my lady. I have taken vows of celibacy that prevent me from marrying, be it a Christian woman or a Pagan. I'm sorry."

William peeked out of the corner of his eye to find Kirstin looking up at him with a scrutinizing expression. She was all too aware of his periodic dalliance with one of Riverbank's female residents; for all she knew, he had lovers in every village and town he visited over the course of his circuit through the Northumbrian countryside.

Ingrid stressed, "This is not negotiable."

William could have fought this by speaking more about religion and vows and the sacredness of marriage on so on. But looking at Ingrid with her perfect face and -- within layers of leather and wool -- her tall and presumably fit body, William couldn't prevent his cock from beginning to swell at the thought of seeing his the Viking woman on her back in his bed, naked, with her knees raised high as she waited to take him into her heathen pussy.

He explained that he was a wandering man of God and would be away from Riverbank for the majority of his time. That didn't seem to swing the topic any closer to him not ending up married to Ingrid. He glanced to Kirstin again for help but received none; he had been a major supporter of the idea of her marrying Hagan, after all. Clearing his throat, William performed a slight bow of respect toward the shieldmaiden and said, "It would be my honor to be your husband my fair lady, if you would have me."

"Then we have an agreement," Hagan said, stepping forward to offer out a hand to William. The priest -- former priest? -- took the offered limb, shook it, then pointed out the obvious: "I believe Miss Kirstin is the one you should be thanking, Chief Hagan."

Hagan took a step to his left to stand before his future bride and offered his hand out again. When she took it, he gripped her softly, intimately, as he said with a sincere tone, "I can imagine that this was not entirely your doing, marrying me, to make your people happy. I will leave the details and the timing of this union to you, Kirstin."

Ingrid considered what Brother William was saying about not being around much. It didn't come across as a negative as she'd never been interested in a lasting, monogamous, and potentially monotonous relationship anyway.

Hagan announced, "Then we have an agreement."

Ingrid met her future husband's eyes and couldn't prevent her lips from spreading in a smile. Just as he had noted her appearance and approved of it, she was thinking that his height and build might mean that under his long, flowing, and shapeless robes he was a well built, strong man worthy of her efforts and skills in bed.

Kirstin, for her part, was not entirely disappointed with the way this had worked out either. She was now betrothed to the Chief of a Viking band, or family or clan or whatever they called themselves. Hagan was a respected man with position and power, someone Kirstin thought she would never marry after her purity had been stripped from her and dirtied further by her step-father's visits to her bed for so many years.

Of course, he was a Norwegian pagan heathen, someone she has most definitely not dreamed of marrying and bearing children for. But all across Eastern England, Viking and English peoples were slowly but surely coming together via marriages that were typically political in nature but sometimes wholly sexual instead.

When Hagan insinuated that she didn't want a part of this, Kirstin quickly said, "I am fully committed to this union, Chief Hagan. I will marry you, and I will bear you children. I will bear you an heir. I do this of my free will. I do this willingly."

She said all of this looking into Hagan's eyes, and when she finished, she gave him a respectful bow. "I need to take this information to my people. Excuse me."

Kirstin again bowed to Hagan, then turned to take the long walk back to the village. Halfway back, she looked over her shoulder at her future husband, and a chill ran up her spine: of the four men who had had the pleasure of being inside her, Chief Hagan of the Rogoland Vikings was most definitely the most welcome.

Hagan watched Kirstin walk away with a smile on his face. He hadn't expected to end this day betrothed to a Christian, but if he had been asked to pick one of his choosing, he couldn't imagine having picked anyone more suitable than Kirstin. She was strong willed, decisive, fearless, and bold; she would have made a great shieldmaiden if she'd begun training as a girl. Hagan's heathen warriors were going to train the Christians to defend their community, so maybe she might just become a warrior still.

He turned to head for the river's edge, telling the others, "Our priority must be the defenses of the village and of our own camp." He pointed to Ingrid, ordering, "You are in charge of communicating with the Christians, the translator connecting the villages to them."

By them, Hagan meant the men to whom he next gave orders. "Hafdan, you're the best on horseback. You will find 10 Christian boys who know how to ride or can be trained to do so. You will train them to be mounted scouts. This will mean you learning enough of their language and them learning enough of yours to be able to communicate about danger when it arrives, which I'm sure it will eventually."

He looked to Eirik: "You will find as much ore as you can that can be turned into edged weapons and tools and you will build a forge to produce them. The village has a Smith shop; I saw it. Ingrid, you'll need to speak to Kirstin and the Village Elders about where we can get more steel for Eirik to use. If we can't dig it up or buy it, we'll steal it. Just don't tell the Christians that."

Finding Canute and Haaken, he said, "You will map out a plan for a moat and barricades. The village sits atop a small hillock. I want a ditch ten feet wide by six feet deep dug around the entirety of it, with the dirt mounded on the interior to create a wall standing over it all. Two retractable bridges on opposite sides of the village. We'll build a wall after that, but that will take much more time and lumber, so we start with the moat."

Kindra spoke up, "And me, Chief?"

"Archers," Hagan said. "The easiest and more effective weapon a villager who isn't a warrior can learn to use is a bow. Find the village's bow hunter if there are any, and organize them into making bows and arrows and teaching anyone and everyone who can draw one back to use it."

They spoke more about the plans and labor ahead, then went to work.

After she'd returned to the Village Center of Riverbank, Kirstin had almost immediately been dragged to the Church, where the most influential of the village's residents -- the people who would come to be known informally as the Elders for now -- were waiting to speak with her. Many had voted against the Vikings remaining, and despite the decision having been made to allow it, they were still now arguing that this was a bad idea.

"You still haven't explained how you will protect yourselves, your homes, your children," Kirstin said in differing ways at least six times over the next couple of hours of continuing debate. Each time she reminded them of that: those who had backed Viking support supported her; those who hadn't went more silent, though not entirely so; the group spoke more intelligently about how to continue; and then, ultimately, they ended up back where they'd started with the opposition saying they wanted the Vikings gone. She stood on the dais with her hands up and out, calling, "This is getting us no where! We cannot simply continue to argue this over and over like this!"

The man who had led the opposition, Robert -- who was one of the only adult males to have survived the brigand assault -- called out, "What is your solution then. And why should we listen to a whore? Not just a whore, but a Viking's whore?"

Angry words were exchanged between some of the villagers, and a shoving match broke out, turning into a fist fight between Robert and Thomas; it was short, with Thomas knocking Robert to the ground in two punches. Robert rose, tending to his cut lip as he called out again, "I will not remain here, ruled by a Viking and his whore."

He turned and departed the Church, and one by one others began leaving behind him, some of them verbally expressing the same sentiments. Kirstin called after them, trying to keep everyone here to continue talking, but eventually more than a third of the attendees of the meeting had departed.

"We need to reform the Council of Elders," Kirstin called out after things had settled down. "It was how we governed before the brigands. It was how our village made decisions for generations."

For several minutes they discussed this and decided it was a good idea. When someone questioned Kirstin's inclusion -- based upon her upcoming marriage to the Viking Chief -- she agreed to be the go-between for the Council and the Vikings and nothing more.

"Tomorrow we will select 7 people to represent Riverbank on the Council," Thomas announced after the subject had been beaten to death. When someone asked why they couldn't select them now, he reminded them, "Many of our friends and family just walked out, and we don't know if they are staying in Riverbank. We need to know this before we choose."

The meeting broke up, and people began returning to their homes or to their work; there were still a couple of hours before sundown. Kirstin returned to her home and to her mother, who had been avoiding all the mayhem by staying home to weave. They talked about Kirstin's upcoming marriage, which -- surprising Kirstin -- her mother supported.

"You were always meant for more than what you have or have had, my daughter," her mother said. "You were meant to do great things. And now, you have a chance."

They spent the rest of the night together, speaking of Hagan, the Vikings, the marriage, and -- with an abundance of laughter -- what sleeping with a giant of a Northman might be like.


The next morning, barely after the sun had risen, Kirstin's mother woke her up, saying with concern, "You must go outside. Something's happening."

She dressed simply and rushed outside to find Robert and nearly half of Riverbank's residents with most or perhaps all of their possessions packed up for departure. There was one argument in particular taking place between Robert, Thomas, and some of the others regarding the horses that had been left behind by the brigands.

"We want those horses," Robert insisted when he saw Kirstin. "They belong to the village, and we are the village, not those Pagans. They took the horses. We want them back."

A back and forth debate continued, with Thomas pointing out that if Robert and his ilk left, they were no longer the village; the people who remained behind were the village and they, therefore, got to keep the horses.

Kirstin tried her best to convince those wishing to depart not to do so, and she had some success when two of the families agreed to stay and returned their things to their homes. But in the end, Robert and some others departed; they carried their food on their backs or in carts they pulled by hand, with those who personally owned goats, sheep, or hogs taking them as well.

In the end 18 of Riverbank's residents left.

"We need to select a Council," someone told Kirstin.

The remaining adults who had an interest in the selection gathered again in the Church, discussed the rights and responsibilities of the Council Members, put names forth, and then voted. Three men and four women were selected, all from different households, though, there were family connections -- direct or indirect --between some of them.

Kirstin was fairly happy with the results: there was a range of opinions regarding the Vikings which would be good for debate, but the experience and knowledge of the 7 Members was without doubt. She told them, "I will pass the news to Chief Hagan."

Kirstin returned home to dress a bit better, brush her hair, and prepare herself for her first task as a true representative of Riverbank. She found Hagan in the Viking camp and told him of the Council and of the departure of a number of their people.

"I am hopeful that before the day's end, some of them will realize the mistake they have made and return," she told Hagan. "In the meantime, I have been authorized to tell you that we are ready to begin the work on making Riverbank safe and secure."

She smiled and performed an exaggerated bow as she said, "We are at your command, Chief Hagan."

The night before:

Thomas the Smith had been working on farming implements when he heard his fellow villagers once again becoming riled up out in the Village Center. He set aside his work and followed them into the Church, listening to their debate in silence. He only stepped up and got involved when Robert called out, "And why should we listen to a whore? Not just a whore, but a Viking's whore?"

Thomas had always had a romantic interest in Kirstin, going back to when she was still a young woman and he had only just learned the delights of putting his cock inside of one. But she had always been out of his reach; her step-father had claimed rights to her body, first without the knowledge of Kirstin's mother and then later with it.

Three men had had sexual relations with the young woman who had recently saved the village from its oppression, and Thomas was more than aware of this fact. But he wasn't going to have Robert or anyone else who didn't know what she'd been through in her life calling her whore, and after a short scuffle, the man who had called her that was on his ass on the floor of the church.

"I will not remain here, ruled by a Viking and his whore," Robert called out, apparently having not learned his lesson.

Thomas again punched him in the face, teetering Robert back into the hands of others as his nose began gushing redness. The man left, as did many others. Thomas watched them depart with a content smile; Good riddance, he though to himself.

Kirstin called out after things had settled, "We need to reform the Council of Elders."

They spoke of government and the past, but Thomas warned, "We should not be hasty. Some of those who walked out tonight are important members of our community. They may go; they may remain. We cannot form a government without their participation." There seemed to be a consensus, and Thomas finished with, "Tomorrow we will select 7 people to represent Riverbank on the Council."

The meeting broke up, and Thomas returned to his work, finding two vikings waiting at his small forge when he got there. The woman introduced herself as Ingrid; Thomas had heard she was going to marry the Priest who could often be found in the bed of one of the village's widows. The man Thomas learned was named Eirik, and he was a builder and a smith.

"We will need weapons," Thomas was told. "Metal weapons. Do you have steel?"

Thomas shrugged, saying, "Not much, at least, not available steel. It is all being used to make farming tools and implements. I'm making a steel plow. Of course, I hear that you Vikings took the horses, so I guess that's a waste of time now."

"You will get a horse back to pull your plow," Ingrid told Thomas. "But we need swords, axes, and a number of fittings for armor, shields. Where can we get these things? Where can we get steel?"

Thomas thought about the question, then smiled wide. "You're Vikings, right? Steal it."

Thomas laughed at the woman's reaction and then again after she'd translated to the man. He told them that there was a town up river about two days rowing in which there was a much larger Smithy that made weapons and tools from ore mined by criminals in bondage.

"I don't think anyone in Riverbank would be hurt to see Vikings raid the Smithy at that town," he went on, explaining, "It's the town that brigand likely headed for when he escaped Riverbank last night. His brother is lord of the town."

They spoke about it further before the Vikings went their separate ways. Thomas went back to work, wondering whether or not he should feel guilty about having just suggested a Viking raid on a Saxon town. After a bit, he told himself, "Naw! Fuck'em all. Kill'em all. They deserve it."


This morning:

Thomas had ceased his work once the rest of the village was obviously heading to bed for the night. The ring of the hammer onto the anvil had a tendency of keeping people awake who needed to be up early to tend the fields. Of course, it wasn't tending the fields that they were doing when he was awoken by sound outside. An argument -- into which he quickly became involved -- was taking place regarding who had the rights to the horses left behind by the brigands.

Thomas reminded Robert -- whose nose and left eye were black and blue -- that if he was leaving, he had no right to the horses which belonged to the village. Robert, in turn, told Thomas that he would pay personally for having laid hands upon him, something to which Thomas only laughed.

"We need to select a Council," Thomas stressed to Kirstin after those departing had done so. He was elected to it, as he'd sort of been expecting. He told them, "The Vikings came to me last night, speaking of making steel weapons, armor, and the like. I think our first order of business must be the question that was raised last night."

"What question?" someone asked.

"We need ore for making steel," he said, reminding them, "We do not have a mine of our own and, in the past, have traded a great deal of our autumn harvest for steel. The brigands stole much of our harvest over the past two months and left us with barely enough food to live through this summer, let alone the upcoming winter."

That same person asked with a harder tone, "What's the question?"

"Do we support a Viking raid on Horncliffe to get the steel we need to protect our own village?" Thomas asked. There was an immediate uproar, mostly against such action. But Thomas heard others say exactly what he was thinking, and he calmed them all down to remind them, "Our oppressors, the brigands who control our village and stole our supplies and raped out women are from Horncliffe. Their Lord is the Earl of Horncliffe. He is the one who benefited from the theft of our grain and stock animals."

Then, with a more serious tone, Thomas asked, "Have you forgotten about Elizabeth and Agatha?"

There was almost instantaneous silence, followed by crossing gestures before some of the resident's torsos. Elizabeth and Agatha were two young women who had disappeared just days after the brigands had originally taken control of Riverbank. It would be learned that they had been taken to the Earl of Horncliffe as hostages, to ensure that the remaining villagers did as they were told. It was generally believed that the two barely-adult women had likely become mistresses of either the Earl or some other powerful male in Horncliffe.

"As a Member of the Council, I put forth a topic on which we should vote," Thomas said, taking on a formal tone. "I say we approach Chief Hagan regarding a plan to raid Horncliffe of the steel or ore they need to make the weapons, arms, and tools we need to better protect Riverbank. I also say we ask him to help us retrieve our missing and vulnerable young women. Council members, what do you have to say?"

There was another uproar, followed by more formal debate, followed by a vote: 4 to 3 to ask the Viking Chief to raid Horncliffe and, if possible, rescue Elizabeth and Agatha.


Hagan wasn't surprised to hear that many of the village's residents had left because he still had the village under watch by Viking's hidden in the woods near the roads leading in and out of Riverbank. Kirstin expressed her hope that some of the people would return.

"I have chosen Clan members to train your people," Hagan told her. "I have also chosen two men to lead the work on building the defenses. I will need at least 20 men, women, even children to join this work."

They spoke more on this, and as they did, Thomas showed up and asked Kirstin to join him outside. He explained about the vote, then reminded her, "You are our go-between. So, go between and tell Chief Hagan."

Kirstin was not happy to hear that the new Council's first action was to vote for their new Viking neighbors and protectors to raid a neighboring town, with violence assured and death very likely. But Thomas reminded Kirstin that she was Riverbank's representative and not a member of the Council she represented.

She resigned to tell Hagan about the request, but not before telling Thomas that the Chief had requested 20 people to work on the village's defenses. She began naming people she thought were good for the digging of the ditch and the cutting of poles for the barricades.

"You are are Smithy," she reminded Thomas unnecessarily. "The Viking's Smith, I'm told you met him. Eirik I think is his name. Will you work with him to do what you do so well, Thomas?"

Kirstin didn't realize that Thomas and Eirik -- through Ingrid's translations -- had already had a discussion on this topic. She continued, "I have volunteered some of the older boys and girls to be trained as scouts, and their warrior woman -- shieldmaiden? -- she is going to train some archers."

The two of them spoke some more before going their own ways. Kirstin promised Thomas she would speak to Hagan about the raiding idea, telling him, "But not now. Not this morning. We must at least begin working with the Northmen to begin securing our village before we ask them to go out and attack a walled town."


Kindra found herself a bit uncomfortable as she stood in silence before a line of a dozen villagers: one adult man, two adult women, three boys, and six girls. Kirstin had brought the group to Kindra and Ingrid, explaining that each of them was either experienced hunting with a bow or experienced in making them from local resources.

After Kirstin had left to attend to other things -- namely telling Hagan about the raiding idea -- one of the boys asked with obvious attitude, "What makes her so special that she's going to teach us to use a bow? She's just a girl."

As some of the boy's female friends ripped at him for being a rude boy, Ingrid translated the boy's criticism to the shieldmaiden. Kindra casually removed her bow from over her shoulder, notched an arrow, and looked around for a target. She spotted a squirrel running about the ground a couple of dozen yards away, aimed, and let the arrow loose just after the animal began up and hesitated on a tree trunk. The arrow penetrated the squirrel's back, pinning it to the tree; it wriggled around a moment, then went still.

Kindra lowered her weapon and spoke softly to Ingrid, who then told the wide eyed boy, "She says that if you want to learn to do that, you'll shut your mouth, listen, and pay attention."

The boy nodded his head energetically, and no one questioned Kindra's qualifications again. Ingrid led the group to the forest to look for saplings from which to make bows and arrow shafts; she spent most of the hour or so teaching the Norse speaking Kindra English words that she in turn taught the English speaking novitiates in Norse. She told the group in English and Norse both before departing, "I will leave you to your work."

Ingrid next met with much of the rest of the Riverbank residence in the Village Center, where Kirstin, Canute, and Haaken were waiting. Thomas was there as well, and after an explanation of what was going to take place, the combination of Vikings and more than 2 dozen English moved out beyond the huts to where the land began to slope toward the southern forest.

Through Ingrid's translations, the two Vikings explained how the ground beyond a line Canute had begun drawing with a spear would be dug up and distributed to the other side of the line, the village side. Ingrid explained in English, "When we are finished, this slope away from the village will be higher behind us and will drop off to a trench, a moat, on this side. We will build spike and spear barricades down here and a wall up there, and anyone trying to attack the village will have to get through these, while our archers are killing them from above and the Vikings are sweeping in from behind."

The reception was mixed, not that that surprised either Ingrid or Kirstin. It was going to be long, hard work, of which the villagers were not enthused. But it was going to turn a defenseless village nearly into a fortress, and after what they'd been through and what they knew was coming, the villagers liked that.

Kirstin reassured the villagers that this was not only necessary for the short term but for the long term also. The villagers returned to their homes and work places for shovels, picks, axes, and other tools, and when they returned, the crew got to work. They would divide into two crews: one would be spending the next couple of days digging the trench and building the dirt wall; the other crew would be chopping smaller trees to be used to build the barricades.

"Who are these people?" Ingrid asked Kirstin when the latter presented her with six villagers back at the Village Center: four men and two women, ages adult to teens.

"These are the people you are going to train to be warriors," Kirstin said. Ingrid laughed as a reaction, but Kirstin did her best to reassure the shieldmaiden, "Each of them is physically capable and willing to learn. All they need is a teacher. You are a shieldmaiden, yes, Ingrid? A warrior? Or is that sword and all that pretty armor just for show?"

The Viking glared at the Saxon a moment, then growled, "I would show you what I can do with this sword by cutting your pretty little head off if it wasn't that Hagan is eager to marry you and take you to his bed soon."

Kirstin's playful smile faded at the woman's words; she had had fantasies about being Hagan's lover, yes, but she hadn't imagined that he'd done the same and told others about it. Or was Ingrid just talking out her muscular ass?

"Show us," Kirstin said, stepping aside and swinging a hand toward the warrior trainees. She added with a smile, "Preferably without cutting my head off."

One of the younger men had a sword made of wood. Ingrid called him forward, saying in English, "Attack me."

When the boy hesitated, she ripped her sword out of its scabbard and surged forward, putting the tip of it to the young man's chest before he knew what was happening. Ingrid hesitated a moment, backed away, sheathed her sword again, then repeated, "Attack me. I guarantee you will not harm me."

The young man was still obviously hesitant; he had just reached his 18th birthday this month, and he wasn't a very confident. Ingrid looked him up and down and asked, "Do you like girls? What is your name, boy?"

"Yes!" the young man answered defensively as some of the others giggled or made crude comments. "My name is Bryan."

"You like girls, Bryan of Riverbank?" she asked again as she began circling him slowly. She would occasionally reach for her sword's hilt or toy with the dagger on her other hip. When Bryan repeated that he did, she said, "But you've never seen one naked or enjoyed her body like men enjoy women's bodies."

By now, Bryan's face was a deep red at the reaction from his fellow villagers, and the wooden sword was a bit higher before him and trembling in his hands. He didn't answer Ingrid's question, so she continued onward, "If you can hit me with your sword, I will get naked with you and let you enjoy my body like men enjoy women's bodies."

Kirstin wasn't sure whether she should get involved or not, so she just backed up a bit as the Shieldmaiden continued to circle the young man and make somewhat suggesting gestures toward her weapons. Ingrid taunted, "What's wrong, Bryan? Are you afraid you would not know what to do with me?"

The young man raised his weapon before him, trying to keep it pointed at the shieldmaiden as her previously steady circle on direction became a bit of a dance before him. Ingrid continued to taunt Bryan until suddenly he let out a war cry and charged the woman. Ingrid easily stepped aside, knocked the wooden sword into an unthreatening position, then pulled Bryan over her extended foot. He went crashing face first into the packed dirt where they were practicing.

The crowd around them laughed, but Ingrid ripped her sword out again and threatened them all with it. She chastised, "That is your countryman on the ground! He needs your help! He is about to be killed!"

Ingrid swung around and brought the tip of her sword down into the ground just inches from Bryan's head. She turned to the others again and said, "He's dead! And he is dead because you did not help him."

Some of the Saxons looked to Kirstin for guidance, but she only shrugged her shoulders and pointed to their instructor. Ingrid reached a hand down to Bryan, who hesitated before taking it and being pulled to his feet. Ingrid ordered the whole group, "You will all go to the forest together. You will cut wood to make practice swords of your own. You will do this today, and tomorrow we will begin your training. Now, go!"

Bryan didn't leave as the others did -- he had a sword already -- and Ingrid turned to move up close to him. In a soft, suggestive voice, she told him, "You have the body and coordination to become a warrior. You simply need practice and confidence. Can you be confident?"

When Bryan only meekly nodded his head, Ingrid reach to his groin and clutched his cock hard. She growled as he grimaced, "Do you want to one day put this inside of me?"

Again Bryan hesitated but then nodded his head enthusiastically. He looked to his left, remembering that Kirstin was there; she'd quickly looked away in an effort not to embarrass him. Ingrid released her hold on Bryan's cock and balls, then told him, "You must have confidence to gain the opportunity to fuck me. Get some!"

She backed away and ordered him to go help but swords. As he hurried off, Ingrid looked to Kirstin, who was having a difficult time hiding her joy at having witnessed all that. They laughed together, then headed back to the Viking Camp, where Kirstin told Hagan about the Council's decision that Horncliffe be raided.

After watching the ditch diggers get to work, Thomas invited those who would be cutting down trees to bring their axes and saws to the Smithy to be sharpened. He sent them away much more prepared for the work at hand.

Ingrid and Eiken arrived to speak about weapons, tools, steel, ore, and more. The Viking Smith brought Viking weapons and tools with him, and the two men went to work with what they had as Ingrid wandered off to do some more translating, Thomas assumed. He watched her as she departed, taking in the beauty of her fit, muscular ass and legs. Eiken caught him ogling his countryman, smiled, laughed, and said some words in Norse as ha made a lewd fucking gesture with his fingers before getting back to work. Thomas could only imagine what the man had said, sharing the laugh before also getting back to work.


Bryan had been humiliated in front of his peers by Kindra. But when she'd grabbed his cock and asked he ever wanted to put it inside her, he'd forgotten all of that and began worrying about something else: he was getting rock hard within her grip.

"You must have confidence to gain the opportunity to fuck me," Kindra said through Ingrid's translations. "Get some!"

Bryan nodded his head enthusiastically, saying, "I will. I will get some. I promise."

Kindra backed away and ordered Bryan to go help but swords, but before he left he looked to the translator and asked with obvious desperation, "Does she mean that? That I-- That we--"

But Ingrid only shrugged and told him he better get to the woods, so Bryan hurried off, eager to help the other finish their work so that he could be back here for training. Once he reached the woods, though, he inconspicuously wandered away from the others, found an isolated spot behind an enough tree that had fallen in a recent wind storm, whipped his cock out, and relieved the tension that had built up while the Viking woman had been clutching his still-virginal cock.


Hagan listened to Kirstin and Ingrid speak of the Council's vote, then turned away to look out over the river for a long moment. Attacking the brigands of Riverbank had been as easy as snapping one's fingers; Horncliffe, by Kirstin's description, would be an entirely different situation.

The town had a population of over 500 at least, possibly more as Kirstin hadn't personally been there since she was in her mid-teens. On the landward side, it had a pole wall encircling it with one gate, which were guarded by men from a standing military force of 40 men. Half of those trained warriors were directly employed by the Lord who had been ultimately responsible for the conquest of Riverbank by the brigands.

Luckily, the water side of the town was vulnerable. There was a wall between the bank of the river and the town, but Kirstin said it was open in places for the efficiency of water trade and -- because no one had ever attacked the town from the water -- those openings were poorly guarded and might not even have working gates.

For the Vikings to claim what they needed would mean getting into the city, killing at least half of the warriors in an effort to demoralize and detain the rest, locating and loading in carts for transport to their boat the ore, melted down ingots, fully processed steel, and/or already manufactured tools and weapons. This was not going to be a two minute battle as had been the battle to free Riverbank. This was going to take an hour at the least, maybe three or more to be fully successful.

And yet, Hagan turned to Kirstin and announced, "We'll attack the city on the next full moon. In the meantime, we will scout the town."

Knowing that that was eight days away, Ingrid pointed out, "The brigand who escaped. If he returns with more men, it will be before the full moon."

"Then we will have to do something about making sure he and the more men do not reach Riverbank."

They spoke of ways to close the road and ambush anyone traveling on it. Hagan asked Kirstin, "You can pick a dozen people specifically for this, yes?"

Ingrid couldn't help but notice Thomas's eyes dropping to check out her shape often during her translation of his conversation with Eiken. She also couldn't help but feel betrayed by the Gods for -- after so long with a lover -- betrothing her to one man while putting before her so many other worthy men who were looking at her like a potential lover.

Ingrid had always been attracted to men who worked hard with their hands. They were often very fit and strong and knew how to handle a woman like her who liked her sex rough. She was certain Thomas would be such a man, but she had concerns about the Priest to whom she'd been betrothed the day before. How could a man who spent his days standing about preaching the teachings of a single God satisfy her?

Of course, what Ingrid hadn't taken into consideration simply because she knew so little about Brother William was that the man spend 300+ days a year either walking the countryside or rowing a boat down a variety of rivers to get to the many villages and towns in which he performed his work. Underneath his long flowing robes, Brother William was a very fit, very strong man. The only question Ingrid would have when finally she saw him naked was whether or not he knew how to use that beautiful body of his to pleasure her own.

She left Thomas and Eiken in the Smithy and joined Kirstin to speak with Hagan. She was more excited than the Chief to learn that the Christians wanted them to attack other Christians. Ingrid was a woman who had been made by the Gods for war. She had no interest in farming wheat or raising goats and sheep; she had left Norway with her cousin because she'd known that peace would not last long between the Northmen and the Saxons and soon she would be back to participating in raids.

"We'll attack the city on the next full moon," Hagan announced, making Ingrid smile with delight. "In the meantime, we will scout the town."

And they would watch the road between Riverbank and Horncliffe, too, Hagan ordered. Ingrid told him when asked, "Yes, I will take Kindra and the best of the archers. No Saxon will come down that road without invitation and live to speak of it, I promise."

She looked to Kirstin and thought she saw hesitation. "When you asked us to rid your village of these men, did you think it was going to happen without blood shed?"

"No, of course not," Kirstin said. "That's, that's not it. I, I'm only concerned that killing more of these men, more Christian men, men killed by Vikings ... I'm just fearful that this might bring even more men and more men over time. The King is sure to eventually hear of your presence in Riverbank, and the King has a hatred for Vikings that is deeper than any of which I have ever heard. I only fear that one day the King will send his army this way, as opposed to letting the local Lords deal with what is their own situation at the moment."

Hagan weighed in on the situation, then the women left to deal with their own business: Ingrid went back to work visiting each of the work groups to translate as necessary, while Kirstin pretended to be making her way back to Riverbank's buildings, only to then turn around and hurry back to Hagan's tent. She called to let him know she was outside, then opened the tent flap and smiled.

"May I speak with you, Chief Hagan," she said softly, entering before he had a chance to answer."

Once she was inside, she stood there in silence for a moment, searching for her words. Finally, she began, "The man who escaped the village, the brigand, the one who took the horse and has the Nobleman brother in Horncliffe. I believe you were told that he had been--"

The words caught in her throat. She cleared it, then continued, "To protect myself from being raped by other brigands, I surrendered myself to him. I was his lover, involuntarily, but his lover still. I agreed to be your wife because my people need this union. You agreed to it for whatever reasons you have, but one of those surely is for me to give you a son, an heir."

Kirstin hesitated; a chill ran up her back at the thought she was trying to get across to the Viking. She went on, "To ensure that the child I bear later this year is in fact yours, Chief Hagan, I think it is wise for us to delay our wedding until I am certain that that child is in fact yours. Does this make sense?"

Hagan wasn't at all surprised that Ingrid was eager to lead the scouting and ambush squad on the road to Horncliffe. He had never known a warrior -- male or female -- with more of a drive for action than Ingrid. When the Clan wasn't involved in raiding or even the defense of their own lands, she was involved in sword play or bow training or simply sparring with wooden swords or even hand to hand combat. Hagan had seen her kick the asses of men who were 6 inches taller and 80 pounds heavier, simply using her speed, dexterity, and superior thinking.

He agreed with Kirstin, though, about drawing too much attention to the Viking's presence in Riverbank. The two brigands who'd escaped the ambush surely knew that their attackers had been Northmen. The only question Hagan had was whether or not they'd understood that the Vikings had been liberating the village rather than simply killing its defenders before pillaging it, raping its women, and enslaving them and the children both. Would the man who escaped even believe there was anything left of Riverbank to come back and reclaim?

"If we do get a visit from these men, these brigands," Hagan instructed Ingrid before she left, "If you do attack them, you must kill them all and dispose of the bodies in the woods. We can't have them returning to Horncliffe to alert their Lord that we are still here. Not yet. They will come to understand this eventually. But for now, it remains our little secret."

After the two women had left, Kirstin returned to inform Hagan to speak about the brigands' leader and the fact that he had been her lover. She suggested they delay the wedding, to which Hagan said firmly, "No. The wedding will occur soon. Your people want this wedding as a sign that my heathens are not going to simply kill all of the Christians in the middle of the night. No, the wedding will take place on the night of the full moon."

He poured a horn full of Saxon ale and handed it to Kirstin, then poured one for himself. "However, the consummation of the marriage can wait. I can wait, and I assume you can, too, yes? We will wait until you are certain."

He drank down his ale, then said with a sincere tone, "And then, if you are not yet certain that you are ready, we can wait a little longer."

Hagan smiled, then chuckled. "It probably surprises you to hear that from a murderous, rapist heathen like myself. But you need to remember: it was not I who wished for this wedding, and although I have no regrets about being your husband and your lover and the father of your children, and although I yearn to be naked with you, Kirstin of Riverbank, I can wait."

He gave her a little bit of a respectful bow of his head, then told her, "It's getting late, and I have things I need to do with regards to the village's security. Please, will you come have breakfast with me tomorrow?"