A World Of Dreams

 The Winter was brutal that year, the stores of harvest had been found to be tainted and the stores of meat were gone all to quick, and so the small fortress built close to the border that parted Scotland and Northumbria spent the Winter in near starvation, but the earl who held it reckoned himself safe, for he knew well that though the Northmen had landed in the North of England and taken Eoferwic, they would not march in Winter, least of all not to take such a small fort.

 That's what the spy had told the man who now stared hungrily at the small fortress that lay in on flat land, he could see the fort clearly, but he had often been told he had better sight than many men, so he was confident that those in the fort could not see him. The Earl who held the fortress had thought that no man would march in the cold of Winter, and that belief was generally right, but they had marched. They had marched from Eoferwic with two hundred men, and now they stood before their target with one hundred and fifty, it was no great force, but for this it would be enough. For this, one and a half hundred men would be plenty, as the fort was so small that it could hold no more than twenty families, and of those only the men would be warriors, but even the strongest of warriors is as easy to kill as a small child if thy are attacked off guard.

 Ravn reached into his saddlebag and produced two golden warrior rings and handed them to the spy, who had gone and taken refuge in the fortress for ten weeks in the middle of Winter, when the cold was most brutal and men stayed close to their cities and towns and warriors remained in the confines of their master's fortresses. "You have done well, my friend, now be off, there will be a good day's killing done, and butcher's work is no sight for you." he told the spy, who was an old haggard man whom had been selected for the job from a village some miles away, Ravn and his men had taken the village two weeks before, but they had done it in a way that despite being Christians, the townsfolk had not resisted.

 The best way to capture small towns is to forbid the men who follow you to murder and rape, but if you storm the town in the dead of night with swords ready and set fire to the thatch, that will happen anyway. If you ride into the town with fifty armed men and seek to parley with the local priests and the town's Mayor, and pay them with arm rings of gold and silver, and swear an oath upon a Christian bible, you take the town and gain an ally, for mayors of small towns are rarely loyal to their rightful kings, who are too far away to care, and Bishops and priests were loyal to whoever paid the most to their church or monastary.

 The old man who had spied on the fort took the two arm rings, stashed them in the folds of his great bear hide coat, which had been given to him as a gift by Raven for the trip, but he understood that Ravn had no intention of asking for it's return. The man gave a low bow in his saddle before riding back to his village. "What kind of Dane would take a town without taking plunder?" asked Heljar, one of Ravn's oath men as the spy rode away. "The kind of Norseman who can not be trusted to keep an oath made upon a silly book." Ravn said with a smile.

As it was just past noon, it would be foolish to attack then, so Ravn and his men rode around to the other side of the fort, still keeping far away so that they would not be seen. They made camp about a mile away from the fort and that night they all drank the last of mead and ale, and ate last of the smoked samon they had bought from the village two days beforhand. Later, years later, Ravn would laugh at the risk he was taking, a fortress, no matter how small, and even in the dead of winter, should never be attacked by a mere hundred and fifty men who could not afford to stay for longer than a day, but he was confident in his men, for most of the remaining men were his own oath-men, and those who were not, at least were strong enough to survive a march through a brutal winter, such men were bound to fight like demons in battle.

 There was little sleep that night, for a proper assault on a fortress must be made before daybreak, and so in the earliest hours of the morning, they dressed in their mail coats and readied their weapons, Ravn spent that time using a whetstone to sharpen his bearded axe, a great war-axe given to him by his father, who had inherited from his father, and from his father before him. The long axe handle had been replaced many times, but the heavy bearded blade of the axe had remained in Ravn's family for generations, and it had sent a gret many souls up to the corpse hall. In Ravn's hands alone it had shattered six shield walls and killed dozens. Because the bearded axe is such a big weapon it is slow, and he had spent five years using it in battle, becoming swift with it, becoming keen with it, becoming fast, and with it now, he was as quick and agile using the axe as he was with his sword, which was sleeping in her scabbard at his side. He touched her pommel and gently fondled her hilt. "Wake up, my Lady, it's time to kill." he whispered to the blade with a malevolent smile.

They rode by the waning light of the setting moon and they rode fast, having passed the village in peace Ravn and his men were hungry for plunder and blood, Ravn though that the Norns would smile upon him this day, for in the twilight or morning, it seemed that with each galloping pace of his black steed, the scent of blood lingered heavier in the air. "This day we bring them Death!" he shouted as a bloodthirsty smile spread across his face.

 And at the foot of Yggdrasil, where the Norns sit and weave the Destiny of men, the Norns laughed at him.