“Careful now, boy.
I shall let that insult pass, since you must be mourning your mother, but accuse me of murder again…”
“Enough!”
Torstein, who was also one of the closest neighbour’s and a close friend to Ragnar, stepped between them and pushed them apart.
“Agsken, go back to your home.”
Agsken stared between Thorson and Torstein.
“And who are you to command me on what to do?”
“It wasn’t a command ” Torstein said “Stay if you must, but keep your mouth shut.
Your presence here isn’t helping.”
Agsken seared, but he wasn’t foolish enough, Torstein had gone on countless unsanctioned raid with Ragnar and every time he had returned with little or no wounds, that alone spoke of his prowess in a battle
” come on boy” He added pushing Thorson away.
“There was no raid ” Thorson yelled as he tried in vain to resist being dragged away.
“I tell you, he did it.
Look around.
If raiders were here, they would have taken the sheep and that goat.
Why would anyone raid and leave without taking anything?”
Torstein did not answer.
He dragged Thorson until the two of them were inside the longhouse
“And do you have proof …
Do you have proof that it was him?”
Thorson shook his axe with a munderous glare in his eyes
“It was him, I need no proof.
Him and master never got along.
They have always argued over the border of their farms.”
“And you consider that enough evidence to accuse a man of murder?” Torstein asked.
“Think, boy.
If I had not intervened, this could have ended bloody badly for you.”
“So be it” Thorson almost broke down.
“They killed my…”
He swallowed.
“They slaughtered my mother.
They slaughtered helpless children and women.”
Torstein let go of him and stared around the house.
He reached out and repositioned the bodies of the woman and child who had been slain on the bed.
Then, taking some clothes, he threw it over them.
“You have one thing right,This wasn’t a raid.
This is a bloody murder” he said pacing around
” Still you should keep hold your silence until we get to The Thing.
Then you can raise your claim with earl Haraldson.
Until then, hold your peace.
Do you understand?”
Thorson did not answer.
Torstein reached out and shook the boy.
“Do you understand?”
The boy nodded.
“Now, I’m afraid there is nothing else we can do.
we have to dispose of the bodies before night sets in.
Do you have wood to spare ?”
Torstein knew the answer but had to ask out of politeness.
No one had extra wood anymore.
Not since people had realized the winter wasn’t going away anytime soon.
All Viking funerals had been abandoned.
Fire was now a luxury.
Nobody was willing to waste precious fuel.
They had resorted to burying their dead instead, saving as much wood as they could to survive the harsh weather.
“we have to dig then.
Come on.”
Thorson barely felt the pinching cold as night drew closer.
He had torn off his upper clothes, leaving himself bare chest
The winter light was already dying and they were still taking turns hacking through what felt like solid stone, but dig as they would, they never reached soiled ground.
Thorson slammed the shovel into the frozen earth again and again.
“That’s enough, boy,” somebody said.
“The hole is deep enough.”
But Thorson would not heed them.
This was still ice.There was no land.
If they had to bury them, then there had to be earth beneath, not endless layers of frozen white.
A little longer and they would hit soil.
Close to ten men stood around him when Torstein suddenly grabbed the shovel as it came up and tore it from the boy’s grasp.
Only then did Thorson realize that his palms were bleeding.
“The hole is big enough,” Torstein repeated “We have to get on with it.
Night is drawing close.”
He was right.
Tall as Thorson was, he was already disappearing into the wide and deep pit they had taken turns digging.
Yet they still hadn’t found any soil.
Thorson stared at them.
Why was no one seeing what he had suspected all along?
This was not the Kattegat they knew.
There was no land beneath this frozen wasteland, only endless white ice waiting to claim all of them.
Yet they looked at him as though all this was normal.
Torstein and another man climbed down into the pit.
Then the bodies were brought one after another.
The master first, followed the wife and then their two children.
Last came the body of his mother, the thral.
Thorson felt stinging tears prick at his eyes, but he would not let them fall.
Once the corpses had been laid side by side, the men climbed out of the pit.
Then showers of broken ice began to rain down.
Thorson did not avert his gaze.
The layers covered his mother and the others until all of them had disappeared.
Within moments, the falling snow had already begun sealing the grave shut, as if the solid ice had never been disturbed.
Only then did Thorson realize that his visions, his dreams, had not been dreams at all.
They were true.
They had to be true.
He had told his mother over and over.
She had kept insisting that they were only dreams, that there was no such thing as a world disappearing beneath its inhabitants.
Thorson grabbed Torstein’s hand.
“You saw that, didn’t you?” he whispered.
“What?”
“The grave.
There was no soil.
You saw it.”
“Yes, and?”
“And there had to be soil.”
Thorson stuttered, unable to explain it to the confused man.
“The land has changed.
This is not the Kattegat we knew.”
“Nothing is what we knew anymore kid” Torstein said.
“Nobody has ever seen a winter this long and harsh, but it will come to an end.
Everything eventually does.”
“Not this one,” Thorson said.
“Not if we are not in Kattegat anymore.”
One man standing nearby stared at him as if he had gone mad.
“What are you talking about?”
Thorson looked at the man, then back at Torstein.
“Forget it,” he said.
The two men exchanged worried glances, as though they had suddenly realized the boy might be losing his mind.
Thorson grabbed his clothes and pulled them back on.
Only then did he begin to feel the biting cold.
It felt as though his skin was peeling away and someone was rubbing salty sea water into the raw flesh beneath.
Ignoring him, the men were already dispersing to their homes as though nothing had happened.
Thorson took another look around.
Agsken was nowhere to be seen.
“Thorson,” Torstein called after him as he turned toward the longhouse.
Thorson stopped and waited for the man to catch up.
“I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here by yourself tonight.
Come stay with my family.
We leave for The Thing first light in the morning.”
Thorson stared at him.
It was clear that Torstein suspected the same thing he did.
If he stayed here, those who had killed his mother and her master might return to finish the job.
But Thorson did not care.
If they did return, then so much the better.
He needed them to.
” I’ll stay here.
I’ll see you in the morning.”
Torstein stared at him for a while before nodding.
“Morning then,” he said before turning to leave.
Thorson stormed into the longhouse.