Prologue I

Thunder beat like drums as the waves crashed higher and higher against the longship. Lightning crackled, struck deep in the water, and fizzled out into the air.

It was a storm. The air was fresh and cold, and if you inhaled deeply, it would chill your bones. 

Clouds like hills blotted out the sky and turned around the eye of the storm.

No men spoke at the sight. No men except the vikings who cheered at it. "Njord is with us!" They shouted; but the thralls had other thoughts. 

"God is against us," they feared as they forced a prayer.

More waves crashed into the ship as the men steered inward toward the storm. They must've been drunk by this time or possessed, for one shouted "Njord calls us deeper," His eyes full of devotion, his voice half-drowned by the wind, "The sea takes cowards—but we will feast in his halls!" The sea bit harder. A curtain of rain fell like little stones onto the thralls who had no shirts on their backs.

A golden haired viking, his hand gripping the dragon carving—that led like a battering ram at the prow, let out a deep roar. His mouth stayed agape to the sky and accepted the rain like an offering. He gulped it back like a mug of mead and began shaking violently, "Njord!" He shouted, almost demonically, "Show me who you are!" sending chills like ice down the slaves' spines. 

He was a wolf howling at the moon. 

The other vikings laughed and did the same, each gulping down swaths of rain like mead and howling. 

"Thor beats his hammer!" The captain of them shouted, "His lightning strikes around us!" His hand slipped from the steer as he limped toward a thrall—a young shivering man—and pulled his hair sharply back. "Look at the sky!" He ordered, "Do you see our gods? Do you see how yours cowers in the face of the sky?" But the man did not understand this language—and in fear could only let out a shrill shriek. "Coward," The viking muttered. He smacked the top of his head hard and stomped away on the watery wood. 

"Father God, who art in heaven," The man prayed quietly, "Save us from these heathens." Lightning as if on queue struck near them at that moment, as well as a thunderous crash in the sky.

In the center of the thralls was a balding monk huddling over something. Between his arms were two young boys, and though the monk covered them they were still drenched. He prayed to them quietly so that no viking would hear and only so the boys could understand. 

One of them, green eyed with curly hair, glanced at the looming storm as if it was a living thing. His eyes which glowed like neon sparkled at it, and it sparkled back, fixing itself on the longship.

It was no longer just a storm, it was a presence, vast and all-seeing. The rain lashed harder, the waves like teeth gnashed at the hull and tore bits from it. But, at the center of the storm was stillness—a great unblinking eye in the heavens. The clouds swirled quicker around it like black, churning smoke, but it was terrifyingly clear. Through the rain the boy could see the center, as if it had stopped to watch.

The monk shuddered as he clasped the boys tighter in his arms. His prayers faltered on his chattering lips, turning to whispers, then to silence. His God, his father in heaven, felt distant to him now, too far to hear over the deafening shout of Njords storm. And yet, as the ship was led deeper into chaos, the boys were calm. Unnaturally calm. If not all there.

The green-eyed boy lifted his face to the eye of the storm. His damp hair clung to his cheeks but he did not waver. Instead he met its gaze as it stared back. Peering through the churning winds, the lightning, and endless rain.

"Don't look at it!" The monk barked, his voice breaking, "Don't let it see you!" His hands trembled as he tried to pull the boy's head down to shield him from the storm's gaze. "They are watching! Woden is watching!" His words spat like a curse, the name of a pagan burning his tongue, "They'll take you—your soul, your heart. They are demons of the devil!" 

But the boy did not heed. The green of his eyes flared like ghastly embers, bright against the storm darkened world. His older brother–with blue eyes reflecting lighting like shards of the shattered sea—leaned forward madly with cold. "He's there isn't he?" He whispered, "In the eye. He's watching us." 

The monk's breath caught as the lightning split the sky again, he stuttered. In that flash of light it was as if the storm bent toward the ship, and the vikings on it cheered once again. The winds howled, the ship creaked, and for a single terrible moment it was as if heaven stilled. 

The monk would not look the devil in the eye, but the boys watched with childlike curiosity. And then for a moment everything shifted, as if they were no longer children. His eyes became strained, his face no longer a smile, it was still, no—he was shocked, "Odin." The green-eyed boy's voice soft, carried to the monk's ear like a death knell. He lifted his small hand to the storm as if it would reach back out. "Are you there waiting for us?"

The monk felt his grip falter, his faith splintering like the wood on the ship beneath him. He dropped his head low, clutching his flailing rosary tight. "No," he muttered, though his voice cracked. "Not them. Not you. Father God shield them from this fate, from this darkness," He prayed, "Please—please—"

But even as he prayed, the storm loomed closer, and the vikings began to sing. They banged their chests like drums and their voices crackled like lightning and the waves shot the ship into the air as if it wished to pluck them from the hull.

A raven screamed above them, its wings cutting through the rain, and in its cry the monk heard the storm's voice: terrible, eternal, all knowing, and calling them all home.

And that is when the monk saw it. It wasn't a wave—it was a mountain—a towering beast in the air, relentless and starving. The storm cried around them, howling like a war of voices crying out in anguish—and in the distance, from the watery depths, came the wave. It was not like the others, it was darker in color, colder, and wider. An impossible wall of water that blotted out the horizon. 

It too, was alive, twisting and writhing like a dragon in flight as it climbed higher into the sky, scraping the edges of the world itself.

The winds fell silent as it rose—and for a breathless second, the longship held still in its shadow. Their roars of drunken courage replaced by fear and wonder. 

The captain clutched the rudder with white-knuckled paws--his face twisted in a mix of awe and terror, "Njord!" he bellowed, though his voice too cracked like a pubescent boy. "If you must, then take us! We are not cowards!" but he was too fearful to keep his eyes pointed toward his death. He first shifted his eyes away, his free hand moving like it didn't know what to do. He covered his eyes with his hand, then wiped the water from them, and settled to hold his sword. "Glory or Valhalla!" He shouted.

The thralls screamed. Some fell to their knees, clutching one another, others praying in frantic whispers. 

The monk buried his face in the boys' hair, his voice breaking as he recited the Lord's Prayer again and again. "Our Father, who art in heaven—" But his words were drowned out by the cry of the sea.

The green-eyed boy lifted his head, staring not at the ship, nor the men, but at the wave itself. His brother, eyes wild with the reflection of the lightning, laughed again, but it was not a laugh of madness—it was something worse. "Do you see it?" he whispered, his voice trembling with exhilaration. "What a dream!"

The monk looked up in spite of himself. The wave was so close now that he felt he could grasp it. At its peak, where the clouds swirled into nothingness, the water parted for a moment, just long enough for him to see a form—a great shadow in the shape of a man, cloaked in mist, his spear raised high. His face was indistinct, but his eye, vast and piercing, stared down upon the ship with cold, divine judgment.

"No," the monk breathed, clutching the boys tighter. "No, no, no, no—"

The wave crashed down.

It struck with the force of a cannon, the sky shattering into spray and foam.

The longship splintered like dry kindling, its dragon-head prow snapping clean in half as the wave swallowed it whole. The mast cracked with a deafening thunderclap, the sail vanishing into the chaos of water and wind.

Men screamed, their cries cut short as the sea consumed them, dragging them into the endless depth.

The thralls clung to the shattered remnants of the ship, but the current was merciless, prying them loose one by one. 

The monk gasped for air, his arms still wrapped around the boys as the water tore at them. For a moment, he felt himself pulled under, the cold stabbing into his chest like a blade. But when he broke the surface again, coughing and sputtering, he saw something that froze his veins.

The boys were no longer in his arms. They were standing atop a broken beam of the ship, somehow balanced as the sea churned around them. The green-eyed boy stared straight ahead, his face confused, as the chaos swirled around him. His brother stood beside him, his blue eyes reflecting the lightning that lit the sky, coughing still, now in fear.

Above them, the storm had stilled. 

A raven circled overhead, its harsh croak cutting through the silence as the sea moved to devour what was left of the longship.

The monk reached for them, but his strength was gone, the sea pulling him under once more. "I am, Osferth," He cried to them, to the air. Yet the last thing he saw before the waves closed over him was the two boys standing untouched in the midst of the storm, as the wreckage of the ship disappeared beneath the waves.

But a mercy; as his lungs were filled by the sea, a golden hand reached out to him. Its light cut through the depths of the darkest part of the water. And a voice, "I am here my son, be not afraid." As God had not abandoned him.

And then, there was only water.