Chapter 1: I am Hroðigaizaz
"Had Hroðigaizaz been where he belonged that night, he would have died a free man."
He was not where he ought to be. By rights, he should have been lying beneath the carved timber of his father’s hall, safe behind a shield-wall of sleeping hearth-men. Had Hroðigaizaz been where he belonged that night, he would have died a free man.
Hwat?
The sound that woke him was not the clamor of battle. No war cries. No steel ringing against steel. It was a groan, deep and resonant, of dry timber surrendering to heat.
Hroðigaizaz sat up in the darkness. Beside him, Eira breathed heavily in the straw of the pit-house, a weaving shed dug half-deep into the earth where the air always tasted of damp soil and sheep’s wool. Earlier that night, he had merely held her until her shivering ceased and sleep took her. Now, the danger was something else entirely.
He stood, his head cracking against the low roof beams. In the last year, his growth had been violent; his body felt like a borrowed tunic three sizes too large. He stumbled against the upright loom, and the warp-weights of burnt clay chimed like warning bells.
Hrodi! Skaiwa!
“Hrodi! Look!”
Eira was awake now, sitting up in the straw. Her finger pointed toward the low gap at the threshold. A flickering, orange light danced across the earthen floor, mocking the darkness.
Hroðigaizaz crawled out of the opening. The cold grass stung his bare feet, but the heat struck his face like a physical blow. The longhouse, the seat of his line, was ablaze.
Shadows of men moved against the firelight, silhouettes armed with round shields and spears. They had wedged heavy logs across the doors. They had barred his father, his brothers, and the entire hird inside their own sanctuary. From within the inferno came the first screams. Hollow. Desperate. The sound of men who know the gods have looked away.
Hroðigaizaz stood frozen.
Fadīr.
A figure burst through the turf roof of the longhouse, a human torch shrouded in flame. Hroðigaizaz could not tell if it was one of his brothers or a sworn warrior before the arrows took him. The figure jerked and fell back into the fire. Nausea rolled through Hroðigaizaz’s gut, tightening every muscle in his body. He took a step forward.
“No!”
Eira hung onto his arm. She was small but sinewy, her hands hardened by the kind of labor his soft palms had never known.
It was night, yet Alrekstadiz shone like the midday sun. The longhouse, the smithy, the storehouses. Everything burned with ravenous flames. Just yesterday, they had been kings here. He had stood atop the peak of Alrekr with his father and his brother, Alawaldaz. The next kuningas of Alrekstadiz. The wind had torn at his cloak, and the fjord had lain steel-grey and submissive beneath him.
His father had handed his brother the wine, that sour, red Roman drink.
“This is the world, boy”, he had said. “And we take what we want.”
They had been celebrating a victory not yet won, the planned murder of a neighboring king. The longhouse was filled with confidence and laughter. The certainty of victory filled the cups of the hird, the kings warriors. Long into the night they drank and sang, and the king had chosen Eira to please him before they all passed out.
Hrodigaizaz looked at the burning building and felt nothing. A sharp yank on his arm pulled him back. He turned to Eira, but beyond her, three men were closing in.
They carried broad axes and short swords suited for the crush of a shield-wall. Their leader, a man whose face was a landscape of scar tissue, stopped and stared at Hroðigaizaz.
Saih!
“See here! A large calf has strayed from the pen!”
Hroðigaizaz clenched his fists. He felt the surge of power in his limbs, that same strength that made him clumsy indoors but now roared to be unleashed. He threw himself forward, leading with his shoulder.
The impact was solid. The man, clad in leather and iron, flew backward, losing his breath with a grunt. The man dropped his spear. Hroðigaizaz lunged for it. This was his weapon. It was part of his name. A part of his body. He had trained with the hird. Learned how the ash shaft became an extension of the will, growing in reach and lethality. This was his moment.
His knees gave in. He collapsed on the ground. Something hard struck the back of his head. The world tilted violently on its axis as Hrodi’s face met the ground.
“Strike him!”
Another blow. This time across the back. He was lying in the mud. A spearpoint pressed against his neck. He waited for the cold bite. For the steel that would send him to his ancestors.
“Stop!”
A commanding voice. Rough.
“Do not kill him.”
A hand gripped his hair, forcing his head back. A stranger’s face loomed over him, smeared with soot, gold rings glinting in his beard.
Saih þō!
“Look at those shoulders,” the man said, spitting to the side. “Look at the teeth. He is young and strong.”
Hroðigaizaz gathered his remaining strength. He had to say it. He had to tell them who he was.
Ek...
“I am...”
A foot stopped his words..The heavy, rawhide sole slammed into his mouth. Pain ignited his anger, white-hot and blinding. He tried to shout again, but his mouth flooded with warm, salt fluid. He spat blood onto his father’s courtyard.
“Silence! Thralls have no name.”
They bound his hands behind his back with rawhide strips. Tight. The wet leather would shrink as it dried, cutting into the meat of his wrists. They hauled him up.
He looked around for Eira. He spotted her among the other thrall-women. They were not bound. They did not flee. She looked at him, one last glance the way she used to, before turning to follow her new owners.
He was shoved forward, down toward the bay. Down the gailu, the narrow road between the walls Hrodi had helped build of stone and earth. They were driven like cattle toward the dark ships waiting in the black water.
On board, he was stowed among the other thralls and stolen sheep. The smell of wool, pine tar and brine mixed with the acrid stench of smoke.
Rō!
“Row!”
The oars bit into the water. The boat moved outward.
Hroðigaizaz watched Alrekstadiz recede. The great longhouse. His home. His family. The roof collapsed inward, sending a pillar of sparks rushing toward the stars, as if the very soul of the house was fleeing the earth.
He turned away and stared into the void ahead. There was no one left to claim him. No father. No clan. No god.
“Fate is mine,” he whispered to the darkness.
