The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) by James L. Nelson

Author:James L. Nelson [Nelson, James L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Historical, Sea Stories, Historical Fiction, Norse & Icelandic
Amazon: B00VAEKXRA
Publisher: Fore Topsail Press
Published: 2015-03-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Always he prized

his father’s words

highest of all, though

the world said otherwise.

Egil’s Saga

The wind was light and fluky, so the men of the four longships, Far Voyager, Eagle’s Wing, Water Stallion and Fox, stayed at their oars, backing and pulling until the bows were pointed out to sea, a sea that was not visible to them. Fog hung over the mouth of the Leitrim and obscured the open water beyond, but the men in the ships knew that following the river bank would put them on a course that took them roughly north and east, which was not the direction they wished to go. But to the south there stood a great headland, a shoreline of ship-killing rocks, and they would need to give that a wide berth. They would turn to the east and continue to pull out to sea. Until the fog cleared, until they could see the headland to the south, they would not dare close with the shore.

Of all the conditions to be encountered at sea fog ranked among the worst. Night was bad, but night could be avoided. Darkness did not sweep in by surprise the way fog did. Things hid in the fog. Reefs, shorelines, rocks, islands. And not everything that hid itself in the fog was of this world, and that was most worrisome of all.

On any other day in such conditions, Harald Thorgrimson would have been peering out into the mist, his sharp eyes looking for shapes that might materialize under the bow, his ears keen to hear threats before they were revealed to his limited vision. But not that day. Not when his mind was filled with a loss so grievous he could not even begin to understand it.

He sat on the afterdeck, to larboard, leaning against the ship’s side. His body felt numb, as if his nerves had been so dulled he could no longer feel any but the most extreme sensations. His mind was like the fog; dull gray and swirling, with only vaguely-seen images emerging here and there. No one spoke to him, or if they did he did not notice.

Conandil sat beside him, actually pressed up against him, and he found some small degree of comfort in her presence. In Vík-ló he had spent as much time with her as he had been able to, which had not been much, but still he did not look on her as a stranger as he did the rest of the men aboard Eagle’s Wing, all of whom he knew only vaguely, or not at all.

He wished very much he was aboard Far Voyager, with Ornolf and Starri and the men who had known and loved and obeyed his father. He wanted to be in the company of men who were lost in grief like he was. But his sense of duty was strong, instilled in him by the man for whom he grieved, and it told him this was not the warrior’s way, that he had a sworn obligation to Grimarr Giant and the rest of the men in the fleet.

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