Embers of fire help us get through the cold winter

Before dawn, the fjord water is leaden gray.

Before the fjord had fully awakened, three longboats quietly slid from the dock into the sea. The hulls scraped against the remaining ice, making a soft, crunching sound, like bones grinding together.

Since Harald's father, Bjorn, shifted the family's focus from plundering to trade, Fjordela's warships have not been launched for a long time.

When Eric was young, he accompanied the old chieftain on his southern expeditions. They called these ships "Skids"—longer than the snake boats, with higher gunwales, countless oar holes, and prows and sterns that rose high like a pair of antlers joined together. Snake boats could carry a maximum of twenty men, plundering along the coast and darting through waterways with the agility of water snakes; Skids were used for naval warfare, capable of cramming forty men into a single ship, plus their shields, axes, spears, and ration bags, with room to spread out the wounded in the hold.

The lead ship is the "Raven," the oldest warship of the Fjördra family. Its keel was taken from an oak tree felled the year the grandfather was born, and there is an old scar about the width of a palm on the bottom of the ship, left from hitting an ice floe in the North Sea thirty years ago.

The warship slightly aft on the left is painted with grayish-white tar, and its bow is carved with a crouching wolf, its muzzle slightly open, as if sniffing in the snow. It is called the "Seawolf".

The stern of the "Sleepless" on the right is slightly higher than its bow. The old sailor said it knows the way home, and even if the helmsman dies, it will still head north on its own.

Harald stood at the stern of the Raven, his hand on the rudder.

Eric crouched at the bow of the Seawolf, inserting the last few throwing axes into the leather rings at his waist. He touched the hull, polished smooth by three generations of hands, smiled, revealing his gums missing half a front tooth.

"That blond Sigurd," he said, weighing the axe handle in his palm, "I wonder if his father ever taught him that naval battles aren't won by blond hair."

No one answered. More than eighty soldiers sat silently in their oarsmen's seats, their leather armor taut over their shoulders and backs, round shields hanging from the edge of the gunwale, swaying gently with the boat. The fog was thick, obscuring each other's faces; only the sounds of breathing, the creaking of oar ropes against the wooden holes, and the continuous, low gurgling as the bow cleaved the water could be heard.

Harald spoke up: "The tide is going out."

His voice wasn't loud, but it drowned out all other sounds.

The long oar enters the water.

Three longboats sailed out of the fjord mouth, like three gray-black knife marks, slicing through the still-dormant sea. The figures on the dock grew smaller and smaller, the sound of oars faded into the distance, and then the fog swallowed everything, leaving only a gray-white void.

Tora stood by the threshold, clutching the small bag of salt her mother had just given her—she had run so fast that the mist had soaked her braids, and a few strands of light golden hair clung to her cheeks.

A very faint, muffled groan came from deep within the longhouse.

Tora turned around.

Mother was still sitting at the loom. Her hand was still resting on the woolen cloth that had been woven all winter—the edges were already finished, only the last warp thread needed to be cut. But her hand stopped, her knuckles gripping the wooden shuttle so tightly that the edges turned pale.

The old woman, Elsa, stood up from the stove and put down the wooden spoon in her hand. She went over to Olaf, asked nothing, and simply placed a hand on Olaf's lower back.

"How long has it been?"

Olaf didn't look up. Her breathing was slow, as if she were measuring how long each breath would last.

"Just now," she said, "the first round."

Elsa nodded. She turned around, her voice low, but every woman in the longhouse stopped what they were doing.

"Boil water. Lay out dry straw. Replace the furs in the inner chamber with clean ones."

No one asked why. The women began to move, their steps quicker than usual, yet their movements remained steady. Tora stood in the doorway, watching her mother being helped into the inner room, watching the heavy wool curtain fall, obscuring her silhouette as a blurry, swaying ball of light.

She looked down at the bag of salt in her hand that she hadn't yet delivered.

Brody leaned against a wooden post by the fire pit. Pale yellow fluid seeped from the edge of the linen bandage on his forehead, and the newly stitched wound still itched faintly. He hadn't gone to sea with the men—Harald had placed his hand on his shoulder before leaving and said, "You stay." Brody didn't argue. He knew why.

He saw Tora still standing at the door, blood seeping from the scraped knee—the girl had tripped on the threshold when she ran back, but got up on her own without even looking down.

"Come here," he said.

Tora walked over. Brody pulled a dirty piece of burlap from behind his waist, not caring whether it was clean or not, and placed it on her knee.

"Does it hurt?"

Tora shook her head. Then she nodded. She clutched the bag of salt, her voice barely audible:

"Uncle, will Mother... die?"

Brody's hand rested on her knee.

He remained silent for a long time. The firewood in the hearth crackled, casting a flickering light on his face at the scar that ran diagonally from his brow bone to his cheekbone.

"Maybe," he said, "but more will survive."

Tora looked into his eyes, waiting for him to say, "But Mother is different," or "Your mother is strong." But Brody didn't say any of those things. He just pressed the linen tighter.

A second muffled groan came from inside the room. It was longer than the first, pressed deep in the throat, like a bowstring stretched too tight.

Tora placed the salt bag by the fire pit, sat down, and leaned against Brody's calves. She gripped her little wooden sword, her knuckles white.

Ragnar peeked out from the corner. He sat on the leather rug that still smelled of last year's hay, watching the wool curtain fall and listening to the sounds behind it that he couldn't understand.

He couldn't see his mother's face.

But he remembered that this morning when she stood by the dock, her hand on the curve of her abdomen, gazing at the stern of the ship disappearing into the fog for a long, long time.

As the sun came out, the fog gradually dissipated.

Three black rocks of Cod Reef appeared a few hundred paces to the port of the fleet.

Harald didn't look at the reef. He looked ahead—where the entrance to Broken Oar Bay was emerging from the mist.

This is the throat of the Blood Eagle family, and the end of the generations-old fishing grounds of Fjørdla.

Eric stood up, his hand resting on the edge of the gunwale. "They knew we were coming."

Harald did not answer. He knew, of course, that Sigurd would wait. The arrogant never fear retribution. Sigurd would not retreat, nor would he sue for peace. He would stand in the most conspicuous place, so that Harald would see him.

The fleet entered the gorge.

At this moment, every corner of the longhouse was moving.

Elsa hung the large pot on the fire stand and filled it with water. Another woman took some dried willow bark from the beam and pounded it in a stone mortar. The sound of the pestle and mortar striking each other was deep and steady, one stroke after another, like the sound of oars coming from afar.

Tora was sent to fetch clean linen.

She ran into the storage room and tiptoed to reach the bundle of fine linen her mother had woven in the fall—it was meant to wrap newborns in, placed at the very back to prevent it from getting dusty and dirty by rough hands. She couldn't reach it, so she jumped twice. On her third jump, her fingertips just touched the corner of the cloth when she lost her balance and her knees hit the edge of the wooden shelf.

This time the impact was quite deep. A thin gash appeared in the skin, and blood flowed down my calf, into my boot—warm, wet, and sticky.

Her eyes reddened, but she didn't cry.

She got up, hugged the burlap sack to her chest, and looked down at her knee—the edges of the torn flesh were oozing a pale red blood; the bone should be fine. She wiped the blood with her sleeve and went back into the inner room.

Elsa took the linen and looked down to see the bloodstains on her legs.

"Did you bump into something?"

"Um."

"Does it hurt?"

Tora thought about it.

"It doesn't hurt," she said.

Elsa glanced at her. "It will hurt," she said. "It will tonight."

Tora didn't respond. She returned to the fire pit, leaned against Brody's calves, and placed the small wooden sword across her lap.

Brody looked down at her. Blood was still seeping from the girl's knee, beads of blood running down her calf and into the top of her boot, forming a dark ring. She ignored it, just staring at the falling wool curtain, waiting for something.

He remembered many years ago, when he was still a young sailor, his sister Olaf gave birth for the first time. It was a polar night, and the snowstorm had blocked half of the longhouse door. His mother was inside delivering the baby, while he was driven to the cattle pen to stay with the animals, listening to his sister's suppressed screams coming through the heavy wooden walls.

He sat like that, waiting.

The door finally opened. The mother poked her head out, her face covered in sweat, but the corners of her mouth were turned up in a smile.

"It's a girl," she said. "Your sister named her Tora."

Brody looked down at his niece's furry back of the head.

"The night you were born," he began, his voice hoarse, "the snowstorm was so fierce that even boats couldn't be towed ashore."

Tora didn't turn around, but her grip on the wooden sword loosened slightly. "Did I cry?" she asked softly.

"He cried," Brody said. "His voice is hoarse from crying."

Tora remained silent for a moment.

"Then it will cry too," she said.

A third muffled groan came from inside the room. This one was longer, with the final note rising upwards, like a rope stretched to its limit, being torn apart inch by inch.

Brody placed his hand on Tora's head and said nothing more.

Ragnar was still sitting on the bundle of leather rugs. He watched his sister and uncle's backs, the wool curtain that was occasionally lifted a crack by the wind—through which flickering firelight shone, and his mother's faded wool dress, stained with sweat.

He lowered his head, clutching a smooth pebble in his hand.

He picked it up by the field on the day of spring plowing. The stone had been washed by snowmelt all winter, its edges were worn smooth, and it felt heavy in his hand. He didn't know why he kept it, he just felt he should.

Behind the curtain, the mother groaned again.

He gripped the stone even tighter.

-----------------

Sigurd's fleet was anchored in the middle of the bay.

Eight Snake-like boats in total. Their hulls were long and slender, with low-slung sides and densely packed oar holes. They were spread out in a semi-circle, like open palms, waiting for something to fall into their palms.

Sigurd stood at the bow of the ship in the very center.

His golden hair was a dim flame in the gray-white sunlight. He wore an extravagant robe, without a helmet or shield, his hands hanging at his sides, like a priest who had just finished morning prayers and was leaving the temple. Behind him stood two crude, heavy crossbows—clumsy wooden arms, iron strings stretched to their limit, the bark on the arms not completely peeled off, and pale yellow resin seeping from the edges.

Harald didn't know if it was traded from a Friesian merchant or a defective product salvaged from a looting, but he knew it was powerful enough to pierce a three-inch oak plank and a person.

The two boats were about two hundred paces apart. This distance was reachable with a longbow, but not with a throwing axe.

Harald raised his hand and pressed down.

The oarsmen put down their oars. The three ships glided a few feet in the waves and slowly came to a stop. The fleet and the Blood Eagle's arc formation faced each other like two bears meeting at the edge of an ice field, each waiting for the other to show its throat first.

Sigurd spoke.

His voice wasn't loud, but the sea was so calm that every word seemed to be chiseled into the ship's planks:

“When my father was alive,” he said, “he always said that the people of Fjördra were tough to deal with. Their ships were tough, and their men were tough. If you can’t take them down, you might as well save them for soup.”

He paused.

My father is dead.

Harald did not reply. His left hand was on the rudder, and his right hand hung at his side, no more than three inches from the axe handle.

Sigurd looked at him. Two hundred paces across the sea, across the shrinking gray expanse between the two fleets, he suddenly smiled. It was brief, just a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.

"You only brought three boats today," he said. "Is that enough?"

Eric forced out a low, suppressed growl through clenched teeth. He drew a throwing axe and weighed it in his palm.

Harald still did not answer.

He removed his hand from the rudder.

This is a signal.

Three boats, over eighty long oars, and one hundred and sixty arms—all exerted force simultaneously. The boats shot forward like arrows, piercing straight into the Blood Eagles' arc formation.

The naval warfare of the Fjord people has no formations, no flag signals, no second plans. Charge in, get close, jump over. Turn the enemy's ships into yours, turn the enemy's blood into yours.

This is a family tradition.

The first volley of arrows came from Blood Eagle's ship.

The longbow was drawn taut, the arrow whistling through the mist, striking the shields of the front-line warriors of Fjørdla with a dense, muffled thud, like hail hitting a roof. Someone groaned as the arrowhead grazed the edge of the shield, tearing through the leather armor and carving a shallow furrow in his shoulder blade. He didn't stop rowing.

Eric stood at the bow of the ship, shield raised above his chest, squinting at the two heavy crossbows.

"Left rudder!" he roared.

The boat tilted. A thick, black crossbow bolt grazed his ear, pierced the shoulder of the oarsman behind him, and emerged from his back, spewing a cloud of blood onto the gunwale. The man didn't make a sound, looking down at the blood gushing from his chest, which appeared black in the gray-white daylight, before collapsing, the broken oar handle slipping from his hand.

Eric did not turn around.

The distance has been reduced to thirty steps.

"Flying Axe—"

More than eighty hand axes were released from their hands at the same time.

The axe blades twirled in the air, converging into a dense, deadly fan-shaped arc that cleaved down towards the Blood Eagles' front shield wall. The crisp crack of wood breaking, the dull thud of metal striking the shield's core, and the wet, heavy splattering of bodies sliced ​​open by the shields blended together.

Blood Eagle's arc formation is missing three gaps.

"Boarding—"

"kill!!"

The grappling hook lashed out, its iron hook biting into the enemy ship's hull. Eric was the first to step onto the edge of his shield, leaping across the narrow trench, landing with his axe already cleaving into the throat of the first man rushing towards him. His missing teeth gleamed white in the blood and foam, like a wolf's.

More warriors surged forward. Shields clashed, spears were thrust forward, and axe blades cleaved through shields, armor, and the flesh of the enemy.

Blood trickled down from the edge of the ship's gunwale, dripping into the sea, where it was diluted by the waves into a very pale pink color and quickly disappeared.

Inside the longhouse, there was no sea, only sweat.

Olaf knelt on the straw mat, her hands gripping the leather rope hanging from the roof beam—the one Elsa had tied that morning, with three tight knots, and had had two women take turns pulling on it to make sure it could support the full weight of an adult woman. Now, she placed her entire weight on that rope, her back arched like a taut bowstring.

Sweat streamed down her forehead, past her brow bone, and into the corners of her eyes, stinging them so much that she had to close them. She didn't have a hand to wipe it away.

Elsa knelt behind her, her hand on her swollen belly, counting something.

"Three more times to go." The old man's voice was low, like he was chanting an ancient incantation, "Three. Two. One—"

Olaf's hands, gripping the leather rope, bulged with veins. She didn't scream—she bit her lip, letting out only a faint, animalistic whimper from deep in her throat.

"I can see the hair," Elsa said. "Next time, push harder."

Brody leaned against the hearth, listening to every muffled thud coming from inside. His hand unconsciously reached for his waist—it was empty; the axe was gone. Harald had taken his axe before he left, saying it was "borrowed" and he would "return it."

He looked down at his empty palms and slowly clenched them into fists.

Tora gripped the wooden sword tighter. Her knee had stopped bleeding, but it still ached slightly.

Ragnar remained seated in the corner. He couldn't see his mother's face, only her back arching and swaying like waves, like the wake of the Grey Goose cutting through a fjord. He didn't know how long this would continue.

All he remembered was that when the sun rose to halfway up the sky through that gap, his mother's back arched to its highest point and then stopped.

That pause felt like an eternity.

Then, a cry rang out—delicate and sharp, like the first crack appearing on the ice of a fjord in spring.

Tora suddenly stood up.

Ragnar loosened his grip on the pebble.

Brody leaned on the wooden post to stand up, his knees creaking, but he ignored it.

Elsa's voice came from behind the curtain, calm and composed: "It's a daughter."