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Bjorn had known it was fatal the moment he’d felt Atli’s dagger withdraw. It had sunk deep, carved a crescent wound that pooled a rotting pit inside him, spreading with every moment.
Dizzy, Bjorn found a focal point on the starry skies overhead, his gaze heavy.
He remembered laying out beneath a similar sky the night he’d welcomed the berserker spirit.
The scent of henbane and wood smoke. Green ribbons of light ebbed and flowed overhead like the tide on the sand as images of great warriors on winged mounts rode across the skies.
Light cascading down from above and unlocking something beyond his mortal body. Out of fear. Out of doubt. Out of himself.
“Not much longer, Bjorn,”
Askeladd’s voice stirred him from his thoughts, catching up alongside the wagon on horseback.
“We’re not far now,”
Bjorn could barely take in a full breath - let alone speak. Searing pain radiated through his flank, his flesh inflamed with splitting heat, swollen taut up to his ribs. Questions and words welled up inside as he glanced up at his leader, unspoken, unanswered, unheard.
They would all have to wait.
Darkness was closing in and he welcomed its escape.
He hadn't always been good at killing.
As a boy, he had learned quickly how the body could freeze in battle. And how humiliating all that was for his father, who had a son with all the natural advantages in size and strength. The makings of a great warrior. Yet was held back by hesitation, doubt, fear.
The Berserkergang was a gift. In that state, he was liberated from all of it. Even amidst pounding heat and roaring blood, there was a kind of piercing clarity: the will to survive at all costs.
He’d been just shy of twenty on his first raid on Askeladd’s crew.
He’d heard of his prowess in battle long before he met him.
Bjorn first watched that first duel as he would any other, assessing his techniques in battle. Upon first glance, Askeladd was unassuming yet his sharp and quick mind set him apart from other men.
Even in the heat of battle, he was so quick to shift tactics that the redirection would go unnoticed.
There was no hesitation. No doubt or second guesses.
Bjorn envied that.
He had a skill for finding weakness he could exploit. Biding his time, he held back with a cool temper and gave his opponent just enough rope to hang themselves with.
Over the next two years, Askeladd’s intuition had led them well.
After a raid, the men would celebrate together with boastful and high spirits. Askeladd would stand at a distance. Occasionally raise a horn of ale with a handful of the men to a cheering response.
What first started out as an obsessive study of his technique soon became admiration for it.
And then, for him.
It was unwise for men like them, but Bjorn couldn’t help it.
On nights where great storms would batter their ships. The icy sea spray lashing them, arms bleeding hot with haul of the oars, he would find strength in the steadiness of his figure at the helm.
Back then, to Askeladd, he was just another man in the crowd. Yet he knew that his berserker skill and stature made him distinct from the others.
He just needed the right movement to prove himself.
“Bjorn,”
Askeladd's voice woke him from the dark. He stood over him in the dim twilight, flickering gold light gathered around his head like a crown of fire. He whistled at him. “...Are you still with us?”
Bjorn blinked sluggishly. "..Where am I?"
“Ha. Where do you think?”
Bjorn peered up at the clouds of smoke filling the skies and cast his mind back, recalling his last steps.
Bjorn had taken it upon himself to use his frenzy to break a formation of soldiers on the bridge.
He’d consumed what he’d had on their march, feeling it pass over him as they approached. Gnashing his teeth, beating at the sides of his head, grasping the roots of his hair.
His heart lurched in his throat like a horse’s kick, heat prickled across his scalp, his jaw locking tight through convulsion.
Fire. Heat. Pounding, pounding, pounding-
Now, here he was. Laid out on the dewy grass on the hillside of the village.
The cool blades of dewy undisturbed grass beneath his twitching fingertips whilst the warmth of the flames gathered to the tingling ache of the injuries on his face like flies on a corpse.
Bjorn peeled his tongue from the roof of his dry mouth and ran it over his gums and teeth. Iron, grit and a suspicious gelatinous glob.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d bit into his cheek but he didn’t feel an injury. He sat upright with a groan and turned his head to spit on the grass.
Askeladd laughed. “All coming back now, I see. Tell me you didn’t swallow the man’s ear,”
…His ear? Bjorn frowned. He spat once more. He hoped not.
Bawdy cheers drew Bjorn’s attention from burning village below their vantage on the grassy hillside. Two men rolled out a barrel of ale. Followed by another who carried a large wooden chest.
“You’re the first I’ve had on my crew. So, humor me,” Askeladd squat down beside him on the cool dewy grass of the hillside. The shadows from the firelight split his face, warm flame and cold moonlight.
“Do you forget what you do in these frenzies of yours?”
Bjorn thoughts were still gathering.
He could recall the pound of his blood in his ears, pounding like the drums on the ship. The scent of burning dry wood, acrid and sharp. The feeling of grappling warm flesh in his large palms, wringing and twisting until it gave.
A woman's scream rang out.
A frail old man and a young couple were dragged out from their hiding spot by five new members of their crew.
Two men separated the young woman from the others. The young man lurched after her but was swarmed by three men who subdued him. As the old man turned to flee, he was pierced with a spear from another that passed by.
“Seems a shame, no?”
Bjorn turned back to Askeladd. “What is?”
Askeladd hummed as if considering his words, scratching at his goatee. “To not witness the mindless destruction you’re capable of," He said, as if if were a given. "Seems a shame for a Dane like yourself, no?”
For a Dane like me?
Bjorn spat once more on the ground, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and finding it crusty with old blood.
"It’s for our enemies," He explained, still a little dazed. "Not me,”
Askeladd paused, brows raising. "…Our enemies,”
Bjorn rose his head, unsure of his mis-step but sensing one all the same in the other man’s tone.
“...You’re our leader,”
Bjorn soon lost count of how many he’d bested in battle once he'd started raiding.
At one point, he’d kept count unconsciously. What had that first man looked like? Was he old? Young? Had he cried out and begged for his life - or fought till his last breath?
Before long, he decided that none of it mattered.
It was simply survival.
With every man he killed, he had just come through to the other side - where they hadn’t.
Valhalla awaited them and, one day, it would be his turn. Bloodied under an axe or sword. His fate was already written, his death certain.
The year of his third raid, Bjorn had just turned twenty three. Yet he had already gained a reputation for his frenzies on the battle field.
That year, he joined Askeladd on his visit to his Uncle Gorm’s village. Askeladd had summoned him to his quarters to check on a blade slash wound he'd received to his upper arm in their last battle.
"How's it look?" Askeladd was sat in a chair in his cabin as Bjorn leaned over to tend to him.
"It's healing well," Bjorn noted. "But, it'll be a pretty nasty scar,"
Askeladd tsked irritably and let out a sigh. He smirked when Bjorn caught his eye, raising his brow.
"Well, maybe I'd look good with a few more here and there,"
Bjorn was acutely aware of his closeness now. "I wouldn't know,"
"No?" Askeladd replied. "Aren't you covered with them?"
"Yeah, but," Bjorn hesitated. A flush rises to his cheeks. "No woman ever mentioned it,"
Askeladd paused for a beat, scoffing. "What's a woman got to do with it?"
Bjorn paused at the question.
But to his relief, Askeladd had turned his attention to Bjorn's supplies on the table beside them, fingering through what had spilled out.
Usually, Bjorn was quite protective of what he collected in their travels.
But on his second season, Bjorn had once found an ancient coin belonging to the conquerors who’d ruled over the land long ago.
Askeladd had poured over it. He'd sat talking with Bjorn alone for hours into the night, voice low but animated as he regaled their sagas with admiration.
It was a side of him he’d never seen before. A part that felt secret and closer to something deeper. Since then, Bjorn had kept an eye out for more.
After a while of fingering over the dried roots, tinctures and herbs, Askeladd picked up a small red-cap mushroom curiously with a smirk.
“And to think, this is all it takes to turn a man into a frenzied beast,”
Bjorn plucked it from his fingers. “It’ll take more than just that,”
Many of the mushrooms he’d collected off both living and dead birch trees were medicinal. Others were simply food provisions. Hedgehog mushrooms and chanterelle for stews and pine needles boiled into a warm tincture to drink during the cold winter.
Others, he would drink in a mixture that served an all together different purpose. Long ago, his grandmother had practiced seidhr to peer into her son’s future, just as Odin once had.
Seidhr was the realm of women and ergi. So, Bjorn had never told another soul about the nights he’d tried the same laid out on the cool grass in the forest, catching glimpses in the ebbing and flowing in the skies.
As Bjorn leaned back, his eyes lowered down Askeladd's abdomen to where his trousers hung low at his hips. When he looked up, Askeladd was watching him, his blue eyes narrowing with curiosity.
“So, what does it feel like?”
Bjorn froze, swallowing hard. “…What?”
"The frenzy,”
“Oh.” Bjorn’s eyes lowered to his hands, where the bruises and scabs on his knuckles had started to heal from their last battle. “It’s like…my body becomes a vessel for something powerful. Something great,”
“Great?” Askeladd raised his brows, letting out a scoff. “…To be a vessel of mindless violence,”
“Of instinct,” Bjorn asserted but Askeladd didn’t seem convinced. He looked back down into his horn of wine, swirling it around for a moment.
“And do you aspire for some kind of greatness, Bjorn?”
“What do you mean?”
Askeladd fell quiet for a moment as if considering the question himself before he let out a scoff.
“I’ve been looking to appoint a new second in command for the season ahead,” He announced. “What say you?”
Bjorn blinked at him, a flush rushing to the sides of his face. He nodded before he replied, more firmly.
“Yes,”
Askeladd clapped an affirmative hand on his shoulder and rose from his chair abruptly, assessing Bjorn’s handiwork by the firelight.
Bjorn’s attention was drawn to him. His gaze trailed across his broad well formed shoulders and arms, down the defined line of his spine and lower, where his trousers hung loose and low.
Bjorn poured himself another drink and downed it, gathering courage for the mindless and foolish steps he would take next.
He poured Askeladd another drink and joined his side by the fire, handing it to him.
Askeladd smiled and took it slowly from him, a curious heaviness in his gaze as their fingers touched. They both finished their drink in heavy silence, the fire crackling and the air humid. The thump of his heart was so loud, he was sure he could hear it.
“What you said before. About greatness,” Bjorn went on, words tumbling out before he could stop them. “If anyone could lead us there-”
Askeladd took a step toward him before he could finish his sentence, bringing his hand to rest upon Bjorn’s shoulder. The look in his blue eyes pulled him in like a riptide; he was unable to pull away from it.
"Would you follow me, wherever I lead?”
“Yes,”
“You would pledge it,"
Bjorn swallowed, his mouth dry. "Yes,"
Askeladd's eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Bjorn's mouth and closed, struggling to focus as Askeladd's hand moved to his chest. He held Bjorn's gaze, travelling slowly down his abdomen.
A small voice warned him that, perhaps, this was some kind of test. A ruse to reveal his shame. Expose what his sharp intuition had no doubt seen in him before it had became obvious this night.
If anyone could see it, he would.
"So, you'd follow me...Fight for me," Askeladd continued, his hand coming to a stop just below his belt. "Using this body, as your vessel,”
Unthinking and dazed, Bjorn heeded his clumsy impulses and grasped Askeladd's arms to pull him in.
It was a mistake.
Askeladd surged forward and slammed Bjorn into the wall, bracketing his muscular forearm on Bjorn's throat.
Bjorn's mind raced with panic, thinking how he might release himself and prepare to fight.
That is, until he felt the hand at his belt, loosening his trousers with urgency.
As it came free around his hips, Askeladd brought his hand to his mouth. He spat on it harshly before lowering it to take hold of him.
Bjorn took in a sharp gasp through the pressure on his throat as he did, eyes fluttering closed as he stroked him.
Askeladd's gaze bore into him as he pressed a little harder into his throat, narrowing his gasps and moans of breath as he pleasured him. He soon set a fast pace, his strokes eased by his spit and pre-release.
Bjorn’s arms were half raised at his sides. Unsure whether to touch him again for fear he would stop. He didn’t want him to. He didn't want it to be over so soon, but it wasn't long before he was close.
He arched into his touch as it rose to a breaking point and he finished with a shudder.
Askeladd released his arm from his throat and took a step back. The firm expression on his face was betrayed by the red flush that spread across his quickly rising and falling chest, his arousal evident as he ran a hand over his length to flag it down.
Bjorn had never seen him look so out of control, but even post climax it urged him. He took a step toward him, blood still roaring in his ears and hot on his cheeks.
He kept his gaze as he lowered onto his knees, moving slow his hands came to rest on Askeladd’s thighs.
Askeladd glowered down at him, nostrils flaring. Yet he reached out, running his fingers through Bjorn’s hair with surprising tenderness.
He swept back damp strands back from his clammy forehead, running down his parting before he grasped at the roots as Bjorn took him into his mouth.
The trysts that began between them that night were sporadic by necessity. But also entirely dependent on Askeladd and his hot and cold moods.
Sometimes, he’d dismiss Bjorn at what seemed like an ideal moment, barely glancing at him in his candlelit quarters before he waved him off like before. As if nothing had ever happened between them.
Other times, he’d set upon him so fiercely that his head would spin. Even bruised and bloodied from battle but pumping with fierce adrenaline, Bjorn would grapple to pin him and take greedily for once but would let go eventually, basking in his attention after weeks of denial.
Despite his overt flirtation with women at Gorm’s village, Bjorn had never actually seen Askeladd abed with a woman. Nor had he ever taken women on raids as conquest.
It wasn’t something Bjorn had thought about - before they’d started dealing with one another.
Bjorn had only been with two women in his life; both from the village he grew up in when he was sixteen. Long before the blood feuds had forced him from the place he’d once called home and into a life of raiding.
Around the same age, he’d spent one Winter messing around with a male friend on hunting trips.
It had taught him what desire was, more than a woman had. That realization was one that he knew, to keep it to himself.
He participated in the men’s talk of their conquests of women - despite having no interest or much experience.
It didn’t always read that way to others.
Luckily, he’d instead gained the perception of being clumsy and shy when it came to women. And that suited him fine as a role he could play.
Better a clueless lug of a man than what they might say, if they knew.
Unlike Askeladd, he hadn’t perfected the art of steering the conversation with a wry comment or wit.
Bjorn often studied Askeladd. Gathering what information like drops of water in a drought. Anything he could to understand more.
And yet, it seemed any of Bjorn’s planned interrogations resulted in him more exposed than before and still starved.
And always with the sense that he knew only half of who he was.
Night descended on the camp in Orkneyjar.
Ever since the Thomsguard’s departure, Askeladd had been in a good spirits. He’d spent the day combing through his encounter with Floki, eyes lit with that spark that bordered on madness.
Bjorn didn’t mind it. With it, came a change in him that usually led to good ventures and got his blood pumping.
Askeladd encouraged the men to get one last night before they set sail in the morning. Feasting and drinking waged on through the night on the isle settlement. Askeladd beckoned Bjorn with a subtle tilt of his head, urging him to follow him towards his cabin.
As he went on ahead, Bjorn walked slower behind him. Giving some stubborn resistance to Askeladd's inevitable pull, even as his body reacted and his blood rushed south expectantly.
Once they settled in the dimly lit cabin, Bjorn looked around. “You really think Thors is as strong as they say?” He said, still watching Askeladd at the corner of his eye move across the room.
"Who knows," Askeladd shrugged and undid his armor plate. “Guess we’ll see,”
“I’d like to see for myself,”
Askeladd turned, eyes narrowing. “Are you asking my permission to fight the Troll of Jom, Bjorn?”
Bjorn faced him. “To beat him,”
Askeladd laughed pleasantly. "Fair enough,"
He slowed at his hands came to his belt, hips jutting out as he undid it slowly with a smile. Bjorn stayed where he was stubbornly, watching and waiting until he undressed completely.
Askeladd did just that.
He closed their distance, his hand coming between them to undo Bjorn's belt. Even when trying to not move, Bjorn's head lolled back with a sigh as Askeladd's mouth found his throat.
“It doesn't matter to me. Tear him limb from limb, if you want," He said between leaving his mark, sending a shiver down Bjorn's spine and legs. "As long as I get his head, I'll indulge you for a bit,”
Askeladd kissed him then, sending his heart leaping to his throat with surprise.
Bjorn surrendered, his hands gripping his waist and pulling him closer. Askeladd pulled at the end of his tunic and Bjorn assisted, pulling it up and off as they stumbled towards the bed.
Bjorn had encounters with three other men over the years.
The opportunity arose rarely yet, when the timing was right, Bjorn hadn’t turned it down. After, they parted ways never to see each other again.
Except with one that he could recall. A man he'd met in Gainsborough.
He had come back for one reason only: it excited him to pretend as he looked down his broad shoulders and short pale blonde hair, pinning him down by his neck to keep his face hidden.
Neither he nor Askeladd had submitted to each other in that way. It was a line he wasn’t sure either of them could cross and recover from.
More recently, Askeladd allowed him into his bed. Never long enough for him to fall sleep, but to talk, drink and then mess around again.
Seemingly keeping him close by when the heat rekindled. Like a lord would with a whore he'd paid for the night, he thought. It was a bitter thought that snuck up on him.
They were both getting something out of this, he told himself. A favor for a favor.
But with him, it wasn't enough.
Bjorn turned to him in the sweaty after glow, heart slowing to a steady thump. The heat of the moment was passing over them, sobering them more by the minute.
“The Troll of Jom,” Bjorn mused out loud. “Sounds more like a legend, than a man,”
Askeladd rose his arms over his head, heaving a sigh flared his ribs. “A legend,” He scoffed.
He sat up suddenly, his hand whipping out to smack Bjorn’s bare thigh boisterously. Bjorn watched him as he poured out some water in the basin by his bed, cleaning his chest and body with a cloth before he pulled on his trousers.
“Legend or not,” Askeladd continued. “Every man has a weakness - and we’ll find his,”
As he sat shirtless on the edge of the bed to tie his boots, Bjorn watched him and wanted to pull him back and close.
“We’ll seize any and all advantage when it presents itself, like always,” Askeladd threw Bjorn’s tunic over his shoulder and Bjorn caught it.
Bjorn smiled. “With you, it usually does,”
“Don’t be so sure, Bjorn,” Askeladd stood from the bed, hands on his hips. “The day my lucks runs out could be right around the corner,”
Later, once Bjorn was dressed in his woollen tunic and helmet, he paused at the door before leaving for the night.
“It won’t run out,” Bjorn promised him. “I'll make sure of it,"
The village on the River Humber was seized in the night.
Morning came and Askeladd left with Ear to meet the Thomsguard at the checkpoint.
Bjon chewed on some clove buds as he assessed the mood within the camp. He’d expected one of the men to bring up what had happened with Thors. To his surprise, they didn’t.
It seemed like it was only on his mind.
“Why don’t you lead us?”
Those words had lit a fire under Bjorn. Just as he’d said, Bjorn had seized Thors’s weakness, held a dagger to its small bared whimpering throat.
Bjorn gnawed roughly on the clove buds between his teeth, mulling over the perpetual question.
What are you thinking?
The men were growing more restless by the hour, waiting for Askeladd's return.
Bjorn had figured a duel ought to occupy them. So, he ordered the release of one of the Saxons, who had kept cursing at them in his clumsy tongue.
Bjorn ordered the men to throw a sword at his feet and the man took it.
Bjorn observed the duel, his arms crossed over his chest as the men two fought. Clearly taking advantage of the distraction as Bjorn expected, a familiar small figure darted from behind one home to the other.
Thor’s boy again.
He’d been scavenging their camp for food every few days.
Bjorn had entered the lodging Askeladd had taken up the night prior after their raid, finding Askeladd drinking alone.
“I passed the kid in the forest again," Bjorn told him. "Seems he shared his camp with a wolf last night,”
Askeladd hmphed brusquely. “He’s dead, then,”
“No,” Bjorn said. “Seems he’s Thors son, after all,”
Bjorn had thought he was dead - at first.
It was only when he’d gotten closer that he’d noticed that the blood was not his own. The boy had just fallen asleep a few feet from the gutted wolf, his small hand gripped on his seax just like the saxon and his cross.
“What are you gonna do about him?"
Askeladd raised his brow. "Who?"
"Who else?" Bjorn replied, frustrated. “Thor’s kid,”
"Let him follow,” Askeladd shrugged. “He may prove useful,"
“A kid,” Bjorn scoffed. “A kid that wants nothing more than to kill you…will be useful?”
“Anyone can be useful, Bjorn," Askeladd said, his gaze sharp. "Once you know what rules them,”
Bjon woke with a start. He groaned with pain and discomfort, covered in a clammy sweat beneath furs.
"Heard you were dead,"
Bjorn turned and found Thorfinn in the darkened corner of the room, glaring at him through the strands of unkempt hair.
"...What are you doing here?"
"Came to see if you were,"
“Not yet,”
“Soon from the looks of it,” Thorfinn said, sniffing sharply and wrinkling his nose. “You smell like you’re rotting already,”
Bjorn laughed dryly. “Not dying before I get my duel,” He said, forcing his words through the sheer effort it took to breathe with the pain. “And then…you’ll get yours. There, Askeladd always keeps his word,”
Thorfinn hmphed, brows furrowing deeply. He sat for a moment as he sharpened his knife on a whetstone.
“Don’t worry,” He said. “I'll send him along after you,"
And then? What will you do, without him?
Askeladd was the centre of both of their worlds - just like he'd wanted it.
It was pitiful.
They were pitiful.
Bjorn closed his eyes, feigning sleep.
"Tomorrow, Thorfinn,”
He heard a hesitant shuffle of feet, the scratching at his head before he turned and the door was a brought to a rough close.
Bjorn was alone once more.
Hopeless as Thorfinn was, Bjorn wasn’t different. Any doubts of duplicity Bjorn ever had were smothered with the belief that Askeladd was one of them.
And that he, of all people, stood closest to him.
All this time, I’ve hated every single last one of you.
Even when surrounded by comrades, Askeladd had existed alone. He'd always been alone. In spite of everything, Bjorn felt a sadness for him that compounded his shame.
There it was; that useful weakness Askeladd had seen so well.
Askeladd often asked him questions he knew the answer to, prompting him towards something he’d already figured out.
“The Prince is only soft because Ragnar coddled him,”
“It’s better that he’s soft, isn’t it?” Bjorn said. “He’ll be easier to manipulate. An ideal stepping stone towards power,”
Askeladd stopped short on the snowy path. “…Bjorn, why have you followed me for this long?”
Askeladd had known the answer he would give but had only meant to prove the point. To reveal his possession of Bjorn’s weakness in his answer, holding it while it beat in his hand.
“Because I wanted to,”
Bjorn woke before sunrise, his breath labored as he exhaled a wisp into the cold air.
As he opened the door into the cold daylight, he stabilized himself on the threshold, overcome with a spell of dizziness. Flakes of snow swept up in a billowing breeze, chilling the sweat on his temples and beneath his helmet.
He trudged through the snow, dragging his sword like an extra limb at his side.
How had he ever held it so high?
Trembling and aching, Bjorn didn’t feel worthy but, all the same, his fate was written.
His death stood on the snowy mount, his expression dark and unreadable.
“Sorry, Thorfinn,” Bjorn managed, bracing his sword in his grip as he rose it high. “This won’t take long,”