"Hold on!" Ragnar screamed, his voice barely audible over the roar of the wind.
A wall of black water, easily four meters high, smashed into the port side of the Sea-Wolf.
In a normal Viking longship, this would be the moment of panic. Standard longships were shallow, flexible, and designed to skim over the water. When hit broadside by a wave like this, they had a terrifying tendency to flip over like a discarded toy.
The wave hit. The ship shuddered.
The Sea-Wolf leaned. It leaned hard. The deck tilted until Ragnar was staring directly into the churning dark water.
Come on, Ragnar thought, his mind racing through diagrams of metacentric height and ballast ratios. trust the iron. Trust the keel.
For a heart-stopping second, gravity fought buoyancy.
Then, with a groan of stressed timber, the heavy iron shoe on the bottom of the keel did its job. The moment the wave passed, the massive weight pulled the ship violently back to the upright position.
The ship leveled out, splashing water back into the sea.
"We're still up!" Bjorn yelled, sounding genuinely surprised. He wiped freezing saltwater from his beard. "We didn't flip!"
"Physics!" Ragnar shouted back, spitting out a mouthful of brine. "A low center of gravity is harder to knock over!"
"I love gravity!" Bjorn roared.
But the celebration was short-lived. Ragnar looked out across the chaotic expanse of the ocean. It was a nightmare.
The Great Heathen Army was scattered. Five thousand men, hundreds of ships, all being tossed around like leaves in a gutter.
"Look!" Ulf shouted from the tiller, pointing a shaking finger to the east.
Ragnar squinted through the spray. About two hundred meters away, a standard longship was in trouble. It had taken too much water.
As Ragnar watched, another wave crested over it. The ship... vanished.
One moment there was a ship with forty warriors; the next, there was just debris and heads bobbing in the freezing foam.
"They're gone," Ulf whispered. The toughness of the chieftain was replaced by the horror of a sailor watching his kin drown. "Just like that."
Ragnar felt a cold knot in his stomach. The Sea-Wolf was stable, but if they tried to turn around in this swell to pick up survivors, they would likely collide or capsize themselves.
"Eyes forward!" Ragnar commanded, his voice cracking. "We can't help them! If we stop, we die! Keep the bow into the waves!"
He looked back at the Iron Serpent and the Storm-Caller trailing behind them. They were struggling, their bows dipping deep into the troughs, but they were popping back up like corks. The "fat ships," as the warriors called them, were ugly dancers, but they were refusing to leave the dance floor.
"How are the horses?" Ragnar yelled to a soaked stable-hand who had just crawled up from the cargo hold.
"They are unhappy!" the boy shouted back. "But they are standing! The ship does not roll enough to throw them!"
Ragnar nodded. Small mercies. If the horses broke their legs, the King would skin him alive, assuming the ocean didn't drown him first.
...
The storm raged for two days...
Time lost its meaning. Ragnar didn't sleep. He spent the time checking the hull for leaks. The wider frame was taking a beating, and the caulking was straining, but the internal reinforcements were holding.
"You look like a corpse," Bjorn said on the morning of the third day.
Ragnar was slumped against the mast, chewing on a piece of dried beef that tasted like leather.
"I feel like a corpse that has been put in a blender," Ragnar admitted.
The wind had finally died down. The sea was still angry, rolling in long, sullen swells, but the violence was gone. The sky was breaking, revealing patches of pale blue that looked like miracles.
"Where are we?" Bjorn asked, looking at the empty horizon.
"I have no idea," Ragnar said honestly. "The storm blew us south-west. We could be near York. We could be near France. We could be sailing off the edge of the map if you believe the old stories."
"I don't like France," Bjorn grumbled. "Their wine gives me a headache."
Suddenly, a shout came from the crow's nest.
"Birds! White wings!"
Ragnar scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protest of his stiff muscles. He ran to the bow.
There, circling high above the water, were three gannets. They dove into the water, hunting.
"Gannets don't fly far from the coast," Ragnar said, a grin breaking across his cracked lips. "Land. We're close!"
A cheer went up from the crew. Men who had been praying for death an hour ago were now hugging each other and sharpening their axes.
"Sails on the horizon!" Ulf called out.
Ragnar looked back. The sea was dotted with survivors. He saw the royal banner—a black raven on a red field—fluttering from a large ship about a mile back. King Horik had made it. His ship was listing slightly, and its sail was torn, but the King lived.
"The King survives," Ulf said, sounding relieved. "That is good. I would hate to have invaded England just to find out we're unemployed."
Two hours later, the grey line of a coast appeared. It was a low, marshy coastline with grey dunes and scrub grass.
"England," Ragnar breathed.
It looked remarkably like the swampy parts of New Jersey, but to a Viking, it looked like a bank vault waiting to be cracked.
"Where is the army?" Bjorn asked, scanning the beach.
"Scattered," Ragnar said. "We're the lead group. We land first."
The Sea-Wolf approached the shallow water.
"Oars!" Ulf commanded.
The men deployed the long oars. With the wind gone, they had to row the final stretch.
The keel bit into the sand. The ship shuddered and stopped.
For a moment, nobody moved. The silence was deafening after days of howling wind.
"Out!" Bjorn yelled, vaulting over the side. He splashed into waist-deep water and waded ashore, laughing like a maniac. He fell to his knees on the dry sand and kissed the ground.
Ragnar followed more sedately, carrying his sack of engineering drafts. He stepped onto the beach, his legs feeling wobbly on the solid ground.
Around them, the Iron Serpent and Storm-Caller beached. The ramps were lowered.
From the belly of the Sea-Wolf, led by the handlers, walked twelve horses. They were shaken, their eyes wide, but they were walking.
"Look at that," Ragnar whispered to himself. "Cargo intact."
A horn blew. The King's ship was grounding nearby.
King Horik jumped into the surf. He looked terrible. His hair was matted, his tunic was stained with salt, and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. But his eyes were burning with fury.
He marched up the beach, his Huscarls trailing behind him. He stopped in front of Ragnar and Ulf.
The King looked at his own ship, which had lost its mast in the storm and was leaking badly. Then he looked at Ragnar's three "fat ships," sitting high and proud on the sand, undamaged.
He looked at the horses grazing on the dune grass.
"My horses," the King rasped. "They live?"
"They are hungry, my King," Ragnar said, bowing. "But they are fit for battle."
King Horik stared at Ragnar. He reached out and grabbed Ragnar's face with both hands, squishing his cheeks.
"You," the King growled, shaking Ragnar's head slightly. "You and your fat ships. I saw Earl Sigvard's ship snap in half. In half! And you bobbed like a cork."
"Buoyancy, my King," Ragnar said through his squished cheeks.
The King released him and turned to the gathering crowd of survivors.
"We are alive!" Horik roared. "Thor tried to drown us, and we spit in his eye!"
The men cheered, raising their weapons.
Princess Gyda stepped off the King's ship. She looked remarkably composed, though her white fur cloak was soaked. She walked over to Ragnar, ignoring the cheering warriors.
"We lost six ships," she said quietly. "Maybe more. Two hundred men drowned."
"I saw," Ragnar said somberly. "The standard hull twists too much in a cross-swell. It breaks the spine of the ship."
"Next time," Gyda said, looking at the Sea-Wolf, "I sail on your ship. It looks boring. I like boring."
Ragnar smiled. "Boring is safe."
"Where are we?" Ulf asked, looking at the unfamiliar trees. "This doesn't look like the landing zone near York."
Ragnar scanned the horizon. There were no landmarks he recognized. No Roman lighthouse. No city smoke.
"I don't know," Ragnar admitted. "East Anglia, perhaps? Or maybe further north in Northumbria?"
"Does it matter?" Bjorn shouted, running up to them with a crab he had found. "It's England! It's all plunder!"
"It matters," Ragnar said, "because if we are in Northumbria, we are in the backyard of King Aelle. And he has a very large army that is probably marching toward us right now."
As if on cue, a scout from the edge of the dunes shouted.
"Riders! On the ridge!"
Ragnar turned. On the crest of a hill, about a mile away, a group of horsemen sat silhouetted against the grey sky. They held banners with a yellow cross.Saxons.
"Welcome to England," Ragnar muttered, reaching for the hilt of his sword though his mind was already reaching for the blueprints of the trebuchet. "The vacation is over."
King Horik drew his sword, a feral grin returning to his face. The fatigue of the storm vanished instantly.
"Form the shield wall!" the King bellowed. "Let's ask the locals for directions!"
Ragnar looked at the disorganized, exhausted Vikings and then at the disciplined riders on the hill.
"Bjorn," Ragnar said sharply. "Get the axes. Forget the plunder. We're building a fort."
"A fort?" Bjorn blinked. "We just got here!"
"Exactly," Ragnar said, watching the Saxon riders turn and gallop away to call their army. "And we plan on staying."