Had a strange idea tonight and decided to write it out. Basically, what if North America, the entire continent, had never been settled by anyone? Not only that, but there was actually a being that brutally prevented anyone from doing just that? No Native Americans, no French, no Spanish, no English.
No Vikings.
Quote:
The boats heaved under us before plunging just as quickly in the stormy sea. I held fast to the side and clutched my furs closer to guard against the screaming arctic wind. Frost coated my red beard.
Giant chunks of ice drifted by us like hulking, silent giants. If we were to get caught between two of them it would spell our end, either by being crushed or freezing in the water. An ignoble end after escaping the sinking of the longboat by the storm.
But land was in sight. Covered in ice, beaten by the storm, assaulted by the waves, but it was land. The men said nothing lest their warmth be stolen by the wind. They held their heads down and waited for the waves to bear us to safety. We were Norsemen. A little ice and cold wouldn't be enough to stop us. We'd make a sacrifice to Odin and begin exploring this new land.
The boats heaved once more and this time they soared through the air. Everyone held on tightly and braced for impact.
The wood shattered on contact with the ice and men were sent flying. More of the small boats crashed next to us, bathing all in splinters and fragments of ice. But we were all alive, praise be to Odin.
The wind abated without warning and the waves became still. The sudden silence was at once bewildering and terrifying. Weather did not change so abruptly and every man here knew it. We drew our swords and donned our shields, peering out into the hanging curtain of frost.
Without the winds to drive it, the air cleared and exposed...something.
A man in what I could only describe as black metal armor, something I had never before heard of or seen, stood upon the ice where nothing had been before. Nothing could have been before, not in this weather. It stood at attention with hands on the hilt of a sword, its large blade buried in the ground. I had never seen a weapon of that size. Ice encased the warrior, thick and clear. Whatever this was, it had not moved in a very long time.
I suddenly felt a chill run down my spine and unconsciously stepped backward.
The ice on the warrior cracked loudly, a beautiful and yet terrible sound that echoed as it broke apart and fell to the ground.
The warrior moved. He grasped the hilt of his blade and drew it forth from the iced earth with no effort. As one we raised our shields and readied to charge or defend.
No one saw the warrior move until he was past us, with three torsos severed in a brutal arc of blood and gore. Before we could turn around he had brought that terrible sword down upon another man and crushed him into the ground. His blade did not cut so much as it obliterated whatever was in its path, be it flesh, bone, or earth.
Someone yelled, in surprise or terror I don't know, and the carnage began in earnest. Shields were split in twain as easily as the men, swords shattered like their bones, and with each breath the warrior sprayed the ice with steaming, hot blood. There was no finesse, no form, the sword just swung with the certainty that nothing could oppose it.
In less than a minute we who had survived storm, fire, war, and worse, lay scattered in pieces about the ice. The black warrior stabbed his blade deep into the earth to the hilt and drew it out, now cleansed of our blood. He walked back to where he had stood and planted the tip of his blade tip first into the original gash.
I knew then, as the life faded from my severed head, that we had never stood a chance. This was not some god or demon. It was a force. The moment we had landed on these shores we had sealed our fate.
This was not Vinland and it never would be. The warrior had stood upon the land for a long time and he would continue to stand, ready to meet whoever repeated our crime. Now I understood why there were no stories about this land. Someone had to survive and return to tell them.
The winds howled once more, the storm resumed, and within minutes even the hot blood etched into ice was covered with new frost. No one would ever hear the legends of these Norsemen. These Vikings.
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