The Banquet of Ravens

Book I: The Feast of Ravens. A Viking Saga.

Chapter 1: The Red Snow of Dawn

Winter in the fjords of Vestfold knew no mercy, and on that morning, it did not even spare the strong. The wind blew from the north like an obsidian blade, dragging a thick blizzard that slipped through the gaps in the palisades and dyed the landscape a white so blinding it hurt the eyes. But the white did not last long. The brutality of the land always found a way to reclaim what was its own and stain the purity of the frost.

In the main clearing of the settlement, the snow crunched harshly beneath the wolf-skin-lined boots of Thorgar Hringsson. The warrior breathed slowly, expelling dense wisps of hot vapor that immediately dissipated in the freezing air. His face was spattered with frost and dried blood that still gave off a faint, imperceptible warmth. In front of him, kneeling precariously on the frozen ground, a spy from the eastern rival tribes trembled uncontrollably, his throat slit wide open. The initial slash had been so clean and fast that the wretch had barely had time to choke on his own vital fluid before collapsing face down, staining the virgin snow with a thick crimson patch that melted the ice around it with a silent hiss.

"They're not even good for softening dog meat," Thorgar snapped in a raspy voice, shaking the notched blade of his Danish axe against the back of a hound sniffing the remains with curiosity.

A few steps away, by the dying embers of the clan's central bonfire that barely withstood the onslaught of the wind, Håkon Bjornsson chuckled. He held a horn filled with warm mead in one hand, while with the other he distractedly toyed with a skinning knife with a deer-antler handle, spinning it with an almost insulting agility. His one-eyed gaze shone in the flickering light of the fire with a spark of deeply sadistic amusement.

"Let them run, brother," Håkon said, taking a long drink and wiping his alcohol-stained lips with the back of his hand with deliberate slowness. "Terror is the best fertilizer for the lands we're going to steal from them in the spring. If you kill them too fast, you miss out on the best screams. Those moments of despair right before the blow are the ones truly worth savoring."

Thorgar did not answer immediately. He hated Håkon's unnecessary detours and empty speeches. To Thorgar, violence was a trade, a tool as brutal as it was inevitable to secure bread, metal, and his people's survival in a world that devoured the weak; to Håkon, on the other hand, carnage had become an aesthetic feast, a morbid delight in the suffering of others that was beginning to make even the most hardened veterans of the clan uneasy.

The sound of heavy footsteps on the crunchy snow pierced the frigid air, dissipating the momentary tension. It was the clan's elderly patriarch, a respected leader with half his face furrowed by the horrible scar of an old war spear and a grayish, braided beard that reached his chest. He looked at them both with severity, his gaze lingering for a second on the bled-out corpse lying at Thorgar's feet.

"Enough games in the snow," the patriarch ordered, his voice as rough as stones crashing against each other. "The drakkars in the bay are already caulked and ready. The ice at the mouth has broken with the early morning high tide. We have five hundred miles of open sea ahead of us, rich monasteries to plunder, and fresh flesh to gut before the month ends. The great hall's pantry is almost empty, and the young children are already falling asleep crying from the cold."

Håkon smiled broadly, showing his stained teeth, and drove his skinning knife so hard into the trunk of a nearby pine that the handle quivered for long seconds.

"Let the ravens ready their jaws," Håkon muttered, fixing his single gaze on Thorgar with venomous complicity. "This year we are going to paint the gods' altars with their own color."