Waves pounded the longships hard, the sea still angry at them for the death of her beloved creature. Everyone was silent as the ships made their way towards a village on the shore.

As they got closer to the shore both of the sorcerers stood up on their respective ships and readied themselves. Soon a volley of fire flew from the ships to the village hitting houses.

The village, panicked, managed to return fire with arrows, but it was not enough. The village had just a few men that owned bows, and not all of them survived the starting volley of flames.

As the ships got to the shore with the raiders, pure chaos was let loose. It was like a group of monsters had made their way to the village. No-one was safe, not the women, nor the children.

On the front was the red haired woman, who had once been calm, now entranced in rage. The berserker mushroom she had ingested seconds before the landing had taken all the reason from her head, leaving a monster full of rage loose.

Harid and his veterans weren’t far behind the front, but they were much more organised and clearly had a strategy and structure to their fighting. They helped each other and made sure that they didn’t get surprised by the defenders.

As Otso had a better look at the battlefield, it was not as chaotic as it would seem. Most of the raiders followed the same plan as Harid’s squad. They were broken into smaller groups that fought in unison, helping each other. It was just the few berserks that helped to sell the illusion of chaos on the battlefield, and the flames definitely helped with that.

Otso looked in shock as Armas cut down his first kill, a man who had wielded a sword against him. He saw excitement on Armas’s face.

Just a second after that Kalev pierced a young man through the chest with his sword. The victim had come behind the man, probably the man's son is what Otso thought.

But his thoughts were cut short by a scream, a scream so piercing that it hurt his ears. After turning his head to where the scream came. He saw someone coming towards him with an axe.

Before he could gather his thoughts back he had already pierced the attacker with his spear. Something that he had done without even realising.

Now on top of his first victim, he saw clearly who his victim was, a woman.

He froze.

His first kill.

The first victim of his spear was a woman.

He had killed her.

Quickly a realisation came to his head. That woman was most likely the wife of the man that Armas killed, the mother of Kalev’s victim. They had a family.

This realisation pained him, but before he could fall deeper into his thoughts a voice called for him.

“Otso!” The voice pierced him, waking him up, unfroze him. “Otso, you hurt.”

He quickly felt himself up. “No, I’m good.”

“Okay let’s go then.”

It was Kalev who had gotten him out of the trance he was about to fall into. Otso had a quick look at his face. There was no excitement in his face like Armas had. He had a more neutral look, maybe more on the sad side, but like always he took the lead of the group.

They grouped together and made their way towards the rest of the Harid’s squad. They managed to take down a few more men, one each, while moving.

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“You three still alive, good!” Harid’s voice pierced through the screams and crackling of fire. “Just little while longer, these people seem to be giving up rather quickly!”

As Harid said, it did not take long for the fighting to die down. As most of the buildings had burned to the ground and the rest of the living villagers gave up on resisting, it was time to gather the loot and the slaves.

Now able to breathe freely, Otso fell down to the ground. All the exhaustion and the closed off emotions was going to hit him.

“You okay, Otso?” Kalev’s voice got through to him. “Did you get hit? You Bleeding?”

“Aah, no…no, I’m not hit.”

All of a sudden, things were okay again. The exhaustion still lingered but his head was starting to get a little clearer again.

“Thank the great bear. None of us got hit, a miracle.” There was a great amount of relief in Kalev’s face. “Wait, where’s Armas?”

“I’m here, I just needed to get something.” Armas walked towards his friends, with a sword in his hand. “Needed to get a trophy from my first kill.”

He had taken the sword from the dead hand of the man he had killed. Otso didn’t know what to think, should he be sad, disgusted, happy or what to feel about his friend. In the end he didn’t feel anything, he just buried it.

“So, the three of you managed to stay alive.” Salrad stated while walking past as he was escorting slaves to one of the ships. “This was just a taste of what it will be at Altsetja.”

“Make sure to clean your equipment of blood before it dries up.” Ulfsvid mentions as he hauls some looted goods.

In the distance Ottharr was observing his new recruits while impatiently waiting for a scout to return to him.

He started to impatiently walk around the ruins of the village, taking a look at his men looting the place. He took a look at some of the new slaves that they got from the raid, inspecting their physical conditions.

“Captain Ottharr!”

“Yes! You found her?” Ottharr shouts out immediately as the scout gets near him.

“Yes, sir! She was found exhausted not far in the forest. They are carrying her back now.”

Ottharr became visibly less worried and relaxed. He let out a sigh of relief. “Just get her to the ship safely.”

“Yes sir!”

Ottharr made his way to the longship to prepare for Bälhuns return. He commanded for food and water to be brought for her even before she got back.

Not long after he had gotten the food and water, Bölhun was brought to the ship and laid to rest at the stern of the ship.

“Did she have anymore of the berserker mushrooms with her?”

“No sir, we made sure she was out of them.”

“Good.” Ottharr let out a sigh of relief once again and dismissed the scouts.

He took a seat next to her to wait for her to wake up, like so many times before.

“You really should cut down on those shrooms.” He said with a low, almost whisper -like voice. There was a worried look on his face as he looked at the unconscious Bölhun. “But you never listen to me. It’s just me listening to your advice and not the other way around.”

His crew kept loading the ships with loot and slaves until all that was valuable from the village was taken. They had gotten eighteen slaves from the raid and these were divided between all the ships to make sure that they couldn’t attempt anything significant towards the crew of a ship.

As it got time to set sail again, Otso had cleared and repressed his emotions about the raid deep inside. He took his seat at the longship and sat there silently waiting for the mark to start to row.

Kalev had noticed that something was different about Otso, but didn’t know if it was just his own emotions that made it look like it. He decided to keep quiet for now and to keep an eye on his friends.

Armas was the only one that looked to be in a better state of mind than when the raid startet. He was talkative about his first kill and the second one that he got while moving with his friends to, in his words, help Harid and the veterans of the squad.

The mark was given and the ships got back to the sea.

Bölhun woke up as the sea breeze filled her nose with the salty air. She sat up and took a look towards the sea. She had a slight smile on her face as he saw Ottharr sitting next to her. Ottharr had more stern expression but beneath that was happiness that his friend had woken up.

“Where we heading?” Bölhun asked with a weak voice.

“There’s a town not far to the south east. We go there to sell the slaves and loot we got.”

Bölhun put her head back down. “Good, we need the room for Altsetja.”

Ottharr nodded. “Yeah, you are right.”

The sea breeze gently swept over the two.