Erik Blood-Tooth stood with his sister Eira at his side.
Seeing his sister’s concerned gaze upon him, Erik turned slowly. "You look at as though I were already defeated, dear Eira," he murmured. "Despite this bitter setback upon the beach, the mountain still stands, and I still sit upon its throne. Tell , sister, what troubles your heart this night?"
Eira leaned closer. "The survivors who limped back speak of horrors beyond reckoning, my brother..."
That is, until Erik rose from his throne. "The longbows," he said, "those beautiful instrunts of death that so surprised the Iron Father upon the ridge. Naturally, they are a secret I brought back from the misty isles of England where I spent the better part of my youth. Though I was born here in these frozen lands to a Norwegian mother of noble blood, my father was an English lord. I lived many years across the narrow sea, learning the ways of their courts, their forges, and above all their yew longbows that can pierce mail at two hundred paces. When I returned to claim my birthright, I brought that knowledge with . Thus the archers who greeted Ragnar’s ridge were ard not with the crude self-bows of our ancestors, but with weapons worthy of English kings."
Seeing the spark of understanding dawn in Eira’s eyes, Erik continued. "Though the tale of my ascension to the throne of Norway is indeed a stirring one, it is not the saga of a simple warrior rising through glory alone. I was the chief diplomat and trusted counsellor to the old sovereign, the man the sagas still call Ivar the Boneless. For years I stood at his side, negotiating treaties, collecting tribute..."
Despite this, Eira’s brow furrowed as she rose to stand beside him. "Yet Ivar vanished, brother. The stories say he sailed south and was never seen again. His loyal servants disappeared with him, and suddenly you alone sat upon the throne, crowned by the will of the gods themselves. How did such a thing co to pass?"
Erik stopped his pacing and turned to face her fully. "Since you alone among all living souls may hear the full truth without fear, I shall tell you. Ivar the Boneless had grown weak. He planned to betray , to cast aside as he had cast aside so many others, and to seize the wealth I had quietly gathered through my southern contacts. But I knew his secrets. I knew of the children he had fathered in secret, the alliances he had broken, the gold he had stolen from his own jarls. Thus I confronted him in his private chambers one winter night, ard with parchnt and proof. I blackmailed him, dear sister. I offered him a choice: sail away into exile with his closest loyal servants and never return, or watch as I exposed every sin and watched his own n tear him apart."
Naturally, Eira’s eyes widened, yet she did not pull away. "And he chose exile?"
Erik’s smile turned cold. "He chose poorly. When he attempted to flee with his most trusted retainers, I ensured their longship never reached open water. That night the sea claid them all, and I alone remained to tell the tale. To the people I declared that Ivar had been taken by the gods themselves for his sins, and that I, Erik Blood-Tooth, had been chosen as his successor. Seeing the doubt in their eyes, I knew re words would not suffice.
Thus I began to speak of the old gods in new and terrible ways. I spoke of how the All-Father demanded blood for victory, of how the great heroes of old had feasted upon the flesh of their enemies to gain their strength. I encouraged the most fanatical of the berserkers to embrace the old rituals, to drink from skulls and paint their faces with the blood of foes. The stories of cannibalism spread like wildfire, and those who questioned found themselves offered as sacrifice to the very gods I claid to serve.
In ti, the fear and awe beca belief, and belief beca power."
Though Eira’s face paled slightly at the revelations. "Then the longbows, the diplomacy, the blackmailed throne, the cannibal tales... all of it was your design."
"Since the day I returned from England, every step has been deliberate," Erik replied, releasing her hands. "Ragnar does not yet understand that the brute he faces is a man who studied at the courts of Wessex, and who has spent years turning the North’s own superstitions into a weapon sharper than any axe. His reinforcents will march up the Serpent’s Pass expecting to crack open a mountain. Yet the mountain will swallow them whole."
Thus the brother and sister stood together in silence for a mont. Erik’s gaze drifted across the frozen landscape.
Eira stepped beside him, her shoulder brushing his as she looked out upon the sa white expanse. "Then the war truly begins."
"Since the mont his first ship entered my waters, the war has already been won," Erik declared.
...
Two days had passed since the arrival of the two thousand steel-clad Grenadiers, and yet the Great Hall of Kattegat already thrumd with the purposeful murmur of war councils renewed.
At the head of the long table, sat Ragnar. To his right sat Gyda, and to his left Lord Commander Leofric.
Ragnar leaned forward. "Since the mont our scouts returned with word of the Gore-King’s cunning, I have turned the matter over in my mind again and again. Despite this savage reputation he cultivates with tales of cannibal feasts, the man thinks like a chess-master. He sacrificed his vanguard deliberately, fed us false intelligence through the tortured lips of Kjell, and then struck from the sea while we stared only at the mountain. Such layered deception speaks of a mind sharpened in courts far more refined than we first believed."
Gyda nodded slowly. "Though we broke his fleet upon the beach. Since the survivors we spared have surely carried every detail back to The Fang, he now knows our strengths and our weaknesses. Yet even knowing this, we cannot root out every spy he has planted among us. There are more than ten or twenty, Ragnar. Perhaps a hundred eyes hidden in the village, among the locals, even perhaps among the new arrivals. Despite this, we have neither the ti nor the luxury to purge them all."
Leofric, ever the blunt instrunt of war, slamd a heavy fist upon the table.
"Naturally, the spies are a thorn in our side, Director. Since the mont we landed, I have felt their eyes upon us. Yet what can we do? Round up every suspicious soul and risk alienating the very villagers whose loyalty we still need?
That is, until we march, we must accept the poison in our midst and turn it to our advantage. Let them watch. Let them report back that the Iron Father prepares siege mortars capable of cracking the very bones of their mountain. Let fear do half our work before the first shell is fired!"
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