Hey, reader.
Before you begin this story, I feel it’s necessary to clarify a few things.
First, the version of Vikings I’m using is based on Season 1, specifically the early episodes.
That means Ragnar has only one wife, Lagertha, and they have two children, Bjorn and their daughter, Gyda.
This story begins in the Lands of Always Winter in Westeros.
As for Game of Thrones, the Vikings arrive during the main timeline of the series.
While many events may unfold as they do in the original story, the arrival of people who do not belong in the world of Game of Thrones will inevitably change the course of history.
Some events may remain the same, while others may be altered completely.
With that said, enjoy the story.
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Thorson buried his head lower in the snow that had been piling on him for the good part of the hunt now.
His bow and arrow lay stretched out before him, but his arms felt too numb to pull the string.
His eyes remained fixed on the tiny hare a couple of steps in front of him as it combed through the piling snow.
What it was looking for, he didn’t know.
The entire land surrounding them was covered in white.
What sort of food could it possibly be looking for?
Perhaps it too, like his mother and everyone else here, did not want to believe that the land had changed, that they were now living atop frozen death.
He wasn’t complaining…
After all, the hare was their food for the day
The winter had now lasted seven moons and although everyone kept saying it had been the longest winter thus far, they all held on to the tiny hope that one day they would wake up, the ice would recede.
Earl Haradson would call on the men and set forth on another raid and return with plunder from rich lands, and everything would go back to normal.
But Thorson knew differently.
He knew the land he had spent his boyhood in had died, almost as if it had been stolen from them overnight.
The god Loki had tricked them into waking up in an entirely different world.
To another person, this might have sounded like a far-fetched fantasy, but not to Thorson, not after the things he had seen.
As if sensing imminent danger, the tiny hare lifted its frail head and sniffed the cold air around it.
Thorson willed himself to stay still.
If he moved now, the hare’s sharp senses would notice him, and then it would be another day spent hungry.
After a while, the hare went back to combing through the snow.
Thorson tried to pull at the bowstring, but having stayed in the same position for so long with cold snow piling up on top of him, his muscles had become numb, and the simple act of pulling the string felt like a frail man trying to move a giant boulder.
Still, he willed himself forward.
Slowly, the blood that seemed to have clogged and frozen inside his veins was awakened from its momentary slumber.
With sluggish effort, he let go of the bowstring.
As soon as the twang sounded, the hare instinctively scampered away.
But it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
His aim had been off by a wild margin.
“Curse my luck!” He groaned as he crawled to his feet and shook the snow from his body.
For a brief second, he closed his eyes in despair at the prospect of returning home empty handed
But as much as he wanted to remain out here, he couldn’t stay any longer.
The cold would finish him, and even if it didn’t, he would be lucky to come across any other prey.
It had taken him hours lying in the same position just to get close to that hare in the first place.
With a downcast mood, he turned towards home but suddenly stopped.
That gut feeling that always seized him whenever something was about to happen had now clamped around his stomach.
Thorson knew better than to ignore it.
It was a feeling he knew all too well.
He quickly slung his bow across his back and began to run across the mountains of snow surrounding him.
He had been down in a small canyon, but it only took him a few moments to climb out of it.
Then he heard it.
He could have sworn he heard screams.
There was no time to pause and contemplate.
He tore across the land like a man possessed.
He did not stop even for a breath until he burst into his master’s compound and fell to his knees.
A scream should have escaped his throat, but no sound managed to come out.
The first thing he saw was the body of his master’s younger son.
A short distance away, the man himself lay with a gushing wound torn right across his belly.
His hands were desperately trying to hold in the guts spilling from the wound, but anyone could see it was already too late.
He died as soon as his eyes fell on him.
No sound came from the stricken boy.
He could hear a few men rushing in behind him, but he did not pause to wait.
He knew what all this meant.
“Mother!”
Thorson screamed as he rushed into the building, but she wasn’t there.
Two more bodies, however, awaited him inside.
The master’s wife and youngest daughter lay upon the blood-soaked bed, each with a knife wound across the throat .
Thorson searched a few more rooms throughout the house, but she was not there.
“Mother!”
He left the longhouse and ran towards the barn.
“No!
No!”
The boy screamed as he rushed forward and fell beside the woman sprawled upon a pile of hay.
Thorson lifted her head into his lap, but only blood stained his tunic.
The cold had already begun stealing the warmth from her body.
Even his tears froze upon his cheeks before they could hit the ground.
“What happened, boy?”
A man yelled from behind him, but he did not bother answering.
With his chest and shoulders still shaking, he slowly lowered his mother onto the stale hay and closed her eyes.
Then he stood.
Reaching where the master lay sprawled, he snatched the battle axe from the dead man’s hand and rushed outside.
Then he stopped.
Where would he even begin?
The entire land stretched before him, covered in white as far as the eye could see.
Who was he chasing?
Yet he could tell whoever had committed this atrocity could not have gone far, and it could not have been the work of one man alone.
His mother’s master had not been a frail man.
He was among the men who often accompanied another Norse man, Ragnar Lothbrok, on unsanctioned raids.
It had to have been several men.
Otherwise, some of the women, especially his mother, might have had a chance to escape.
As it was, it looked as though they had all been caught unaware, and the man had barely had time to react.
His eyes slowly turned to the gathered men.
“Who did this?” he asked, looking at them.
Most of them held weapons in their hands, but it seemed they had been responding to the screams just as he had.
“Who did this?” he demanded again, shoving from one man to another.
All of them looked around as expectantly as he did.
No one answered.
“Who did this?” he screamed at one of the nearest neighbours.
One of the slain man’s friends stepped forward.
“None of us have any idea, boy.That was what we were hoping you would clarify.”
Thorson took note of the coldness in the man’s voice.
“What do you mean by that?” He demanded.
“You think I slew them?
You think I slew my own mother?”
Thorson stepped closer to the man.
Even at sixteen, he was a towering figure, easily standing over the bulky man.
Another neighbour stepped forward.
“Calm yourself, boy.
He did not mean anything by it.
We are responding to the screams just like you.”
“How can that be?
Whoever did this could not have gotten far.”
“Agreed.
But where are they?”
“Gone!” a man suddenly shouted.
All of them turned toward him.
It was Agsken.
Thorson immediately turned towards the man.
“Raiders,” Agsken said.
“Men on horses…
I Saw them disappear over there.”
Thorson followed the direction the man pointed.
There was nothing.
“Raiders….
How?
They would have had to cross several villages to reach here.” one of the neighbors said.
” maybe they raided those villages first,” Agsken answerd
Thorson however had his eyes fixed on the battle axe on the man’s hand
There was no blood in it but the man looked worn and his cloths and hair looked like that of a man fresh from a battle.
“You.” Thorson said drawing nearer with his fingers tightening around the axe
“You did it.”