Crashing to shore
Eshone stood on the bow of his boat trying to see through the streaming rain that lashed at his face in the high winds. His long hair pulling behind him dried as quick as the rain landed, his hands sat frozen on the ropes to steady himself.
In the bow of the boat huddled his best man, with his wife, Eshone's sister and their young child still in arms swaying with the waves against his mother's already swollen belly. Her eye's now looking at him with desperation and hope that he had not led them on a fools' errand.
The goat's bleats cut through the sound of the young babes sat at his mother's feet, all eyes burning into his back and the weight of generations of family on his shoulders.
Eshone refused to shake in the cold or bow down to the wind. He was not the firstborn, but he was the only born living who could sail his family to distant shores. For safety and hope of a long life without the threat of the axe that had taken his father and brothers life.
In the very back of the boat crouched the thing he feared the most, his own son, the son of the tribes Princess. Although he called her princess it was only an imagined title, given to her when her father the richest Jarl in their area, had wanted to rise himself above the others by taking the name of Konung Gormsson.
Eshone's father had served as warrior to Jarl Gorm, but when he died in battle his weak-minded son had taken up his mantel. Gormsson was considered pious, astute and rule driven but his father never let him test his mental in war. After a very bloody crusade to secure farming lands he became cruel, selfish, and bloodthirsty.
His men had started calling him Gormless because he turned his back on the gods and his men.
Eshone had lost all hope when he had returned from a raiding party to his wife's arms in the rooms above the great hall; sitting with her and his son regaling them with his most recent adventure the story was cut short by a blood-curdling scream. He ran to the rail just in time to see his sister-in-law Freya fall across his brothers body, knife in hand still sticking out of her chest. Next to them laid his headless father.
His wife ran behind him and took his arm trying to guide him back to their quarters. “Come away, it is fathers business”, Eshone's eyes burned with fire as he looked towards her, she had known, his father and his brother, and she had known. Placing herself to distract him when he had returned early.
Eshone shook free of Liv and charge down the steps to confront Gormsson, what charge could they have committed that had cost them their lives? He reached the bottom of the steps and strode out towards the chair that had been placed on a high platform. The cold stickiness that seeped into his leather shoes was unmistakable, and made him pause for just a second, knowing he was stood in the blood of his fallen family.
Stealing himself he approached the seat without fear knowing it could also be his last day. “Why have you slain my family? And what of Freya?” Gormsson looked away from his smiling idiot of a son, ending the conversation they were clearly enjoying and faced him. “They betrayed me! Left here with three boats, filled to the brim with gold, Karl's, and Thrall's, even their own Leysingi's. When they returned they had a few warriors left aboard their boat and pitiful plunders. Claimed one boat has sunk and another was lost during the night at high sea's”.
Eshone clenched his jaw at the accusation his father was a thief of gold and slaves, as well as a murder of noble's. “How do you not know it to be true?” He searched his face for an answer, but it was on the son's face he saw it. A long slash mark from the top of his ear continuing down his neck and into the collar of his vest.
Turning his head to make the mark more visible Edasson spoke, “I saw your father lash the ships together in the night and transfer people from one ship to another, after that they separated letting the high winds take them in different directions. I had hoped the fog of the sea had disguised my boat but as you father sailed closer, I knew I was seen. He chased me for three days, I barely made it back to port where he ambushed me, killed my men and kicked me into the sea for dead. He then dares sit at my fathers table, while your brother sailed my ship round the coast to hide their deed”.
