I, Eyvindur: To the Land of Wine (V - Runestone)

Preface & Glossary: https://www.abctales.com/story/fabiandekerck/i-eyvindur-land-wine-preface-glossary

RUNESTONE

Ásbjörn groaned at the sky. Night was falling. A pretty night. The kind of obsidian sheen where quartz glitters amongst it. Eyvindur was in haste to gather wood, though it was clear his motives had ulterior direction. The third time in the week that he had gone to the forest alone for wood, allowing only Ásbjörn along, if for his usefulness to carry the timber, and his silence so that solitude might allow some opportunity of grievance.

But further still, had Eyvindur seemed to seek challenge: every trip had left him one piece of armour behind at the hall in walls. He was helmetless, pauldron-less, and without any greaves beyond leather boots. And in the moonlight, it was clear: that motive was the carving of an old stone. A runestone, in Younger Futhark the names of those twenty-two dead, and the number of Skrælingjar bodies recovered beside. An odd practice for a man dedicated to war, but Ásbjörn had no interest in questions.

From his belt pouch, he offered Eyvindur a slither of salted blubber. It had been saved especially in payment for his duties so many weeks prior, but Eyvindur refused. And though Ásbjörn did not argue, there was no refuting something had broken his friend.

And so, he hacked at a near tree.

Alongside the night’s insects, and the intermittent silences, or the moon’s smile and gentle coast breezes through the humming pitch of night’s chilly cloak, Eyvindur was granted his introspection. A solitude beyond self-loneliness. For this journey of glory had not shown him Ginnungagap, as much as he felt it. And perhaps the eternal njól he yearned earlier for in his brooding mind was almost beset on all sides of that wood in the land where wine grows on trees, and bread grows in the grasses.

His dirk still held edge in the hard stone as he carved. Something enlightening was gifted to him as he remembered those fallen, on both sides, even if he did not know their names; for their faces were eternalised in his mind. A burden as much as a great gift to be given life when theirs was taken. But he had earnt his glory in that fight, so why now did he feel such a split?

Ásbjörn’s first tree fell. An awful crash shook the earth for a moment.

Leif had shown his peace, but only by offering others the chaos, and they had taken it gladly. His brother, not a coward, but some blood-hungry beast. And what was it from Eyvindur to expect no less from either?

Regardless, their names were then immortalised. Because though their faces were eternal in his mind, in stone, they might be immortal, even if a number is all that was left for many.

A growl echoed amongst the treeline. Eyvindur knew it before it had come; a great bear, with the fullest coat and fiercest demeanour she charged the pair as fast as her grizzled shout made their ears. Ásbjörn stepped between the beast and Eyvindur, with only his logging axe. The húskarl did not move; not frozen in fear, but seemingly ready to relieve the haunting of what he had reaved in his life.

A choking cough, and a sanguine expiration made free from Ásbjörn. His axe was still in hand, but the bear had taken the entire arm to the side. And in moments, Ásbjörn watched with dizzy blurs as his life soaked the earth. He wanted to scream, to beg mercy. A tongueless man is stripped of such privilege long before it becomes apparent.

‘Hail…’ a scout on the wood fringes in shock hollered to Eyvindur. Thorir was his name. ‘You must run húskarl, flee whilst you can-’

A Skraeling cry then followed behind the bear, and the scout himself ran.

Eyvindur still watched as his friend was felled at the mercy of the creature, who had attacked unprovoked unless it knew of their misplaced ways. And then it was fear that rooted Eyvindur, as his instinct told him nothing decisive; the most decisive amongst the guard to Leif Eriksson, was without an answer to his final doom.

Thorir had made no time wasted to reach the staying room of Leif and Thorvald, and though Leif slumbered, Thorvald gazed into the horizon at the treeline. ‘Eriksson… Eyvindur and Ásbjörn, Skrælingjar, we must ready ourselves,’ Thorir huffed, high of breath.

‘We must close our walls and defend what we have,’ Thorvald snapped back.

‘We can save Eyvindur-’

‘We cannot. We will not. He is a great warrior, but a simple man. Should Eyvindur wish to live, he would.’

The scout came closer, into the warmth blessed by the hearth, ‘but, Thorvald, a bear…’

Thorvald gave a lengthened stare. ‘What of Valhöll? The glory of the heads of beasts?’

Thorir the scout, despondent, had no rebuttal.

Eyvindur watched the bear come close. And his adrenaline fuelled that his arm threw his axe at the bear’s head, wedging it firm, though not deep, in the creature’s neck. The wound was sealed by the weapon.

The bear lunged forward, as the echo of Skrælingjar wails inflated in volume, where Eyvindur’s body rolled over his stomach. Ásbjörn’s arm had a grip tight around the belly of his axe, but was two hard yanks made it loose, leaving the limb only the blue-shifting hue to dye its skin. The Gold Wolf of Iceland raised the Sea Bear’s weapon.

Eyvindur stood himself tall. The bear turned, bellowing commands for surrender in its primitive tongue, whilst the húskarl watched on. She took two sweeping gallops and a half-leap at the man, who evaded to the side, where his leg kicked hard the grip of his earlier axe, sinking it deep into the bear, who let out a furious noise of wrathful vengeance.

An arrow whistled into the sound of Eyvindur’s ear. The Skrælingjar had arrived.

 It pushed him to one knee, and to a hand upon his head. The bear took its chance and forced him to the floor. One swipe tore garment and skin from his chest, as Eyvindur’s body inclined him to hack at its head.

A terrible crunch came as the húskarl’s forearm snapped against the jaws of the creature, quivering his energy away, as the bear used its dying breaths to tear Eyvindur’s throat and face apart. And the Skrælingjar galloped past.

A graceful gallop, like watching a band in glee, and it made Eyvindur happy.

‘I hope,’ the húskarl’s final ponderings were, ‘that Olaf or any good man might forge a new world in the image as best as beings can be. We may have failed, but my death wish will be that our failures are remembered; for the Skrælingjar needn’t be murdered as on the desire of a man such as Thorvald. Or that co-operation builds the future. Whichever god take me, that is all that I give my soul for. Vinland… Land of wine. Simple debauchery was promised, some sense of godliness was tricked, and wisdom was learned. I only hope others learn.’

And Eyvindur died with a bear of the land atop his belly and a bear of the sea strewn in pieces around him.