Salt water broke over the bow of the ship, all hands rowing as hard as they could to carry the vessel through the surging waters. The wind was wildly powerful, the waves the same despite any obvious storm overhead. Perhaps his father was right, and Jormungandr himself had set his eyes upon their ship for the audacity of sailing even further west.

If fighting the world devouring serpent was his price to pay for exploration, then he’d gladly pay it. No snake would stop him.

“Sea serpent ahead!”

Not that they wouldn’t try. Leif immediately called out towards his family, knowing that their father had drilled them to death on every martial technique. The bow was no different.

“Freydis, Thorvald, Thorstein, bows at the ready. To the front!”

His shout carried far despite the roar of the seas. The longship was constantly at an incline or decline, flying too fast as they crested waves nonstop. Losing their four strongest rowers would slow their advance but not by much. Not with the amount of wind in their sail.

He was counting on it.

Reaching the bow of the ship, his younger brothers nodded once before drawing their arrows.

“We wait until we crest the next wave. Loose on the way down.”

The ship was in the rise portion of this never-ending dance as sixteen Vikings rowed furiously behind them. He didn’t know how far ahead the serpent was, but it couldn’t reach the ship. Not if they wanted to live.

“Hold fast!”

This wave turned out to be enormous, the ship nearly going entirely vertical as they climbed it. His family and him held onto their bows as they prepared to greet the beast. Each of them was using a technique that their father had taught them to stand up in a moving longship, hooking their feet below the loose planks normally meant to hold cargo.

The ship rushed through the violent wave as salt water cascaded onto the crew. A good thing they’d brought a proper smith with them; all their iron gear would need reforging by the time they were out of this bizarre squall.

And then they began their descent down the wave. He saw it immediately. The serpent was massive, standing out even with these enormous waves. The scales were blue green to blend in with the ocean, but the sheer size and movement of the creature made its presence obvious nonetheless.

The monster was less than a hundred yards away. Too close for them to get a second chance at this before it would reach them. They had to take it out with one.

“Aim for the eyes!”

The wave they currently rode was massive, but even still it wouldn’t give enough time for two shots. Not if they were to have any accuracy. No, they all had to hit the tender spot of the creature at the same time. Hopefully blinding the creature would let them slip by it. He’d have to settle for that hope.

“Loose!”

Four arrows flew through the air and four arrows hit the creature. Two buried to the fletching in the left eye and one through the other as a fourth arrow barely stabbed into the scale directly below its right eye.

“What worthless cur couldn’t make that shot!”

Thorvald immediately shouted, spinning on the rest of them. He glanced at Thorstein, the youngest of them. Having seen only fifteen summers, he had the least experience and was the most likely to have missed. The furious man didn’t even consider Leif. Instead, his gaze rested on Freydis, their sister.

“Focus up! We have a mythical creature coming for the ship.” Leif said while locking eyes with his brother. The whole family knew that Freydis was the best hunter out of the lot. Erik the Red himself had taught his children everything he could about combat, but the sons had still ended up focusing on swords. A Viking was at his best when stabbing his enemies with his hjǫrr1 and shielding his crew with his skjǫldr2. That’s what their father always said at least.

Freydis had a different saying.

“We just have to kill it before it kills us.”

Leif had to admit, much as he liked proper combat, there was value to be found in such simplicity. But that could wait until they weren’t fighting for their lives.

“Oars up! Weapons at the ready!”

Most of the crew focused on where they were already seated, pulling axes and swords up from under the planks. A few had positioned their hjǫrr to be close at hand, those few that had crewed a raiding vessel before and knew to stash their Viking sword close. The rest would have to make do with what they could quickly find.

Only seconds passed before Leif saw the shape cutting through the wave in front of them.

“Brace!”

He wedged his bow into a nearby plank, drawing his hjǫrr and skjǫldr as quickly as he could. He positioned himself with one foot as far forward as he could while the other was wedged between two nearby planks. The wood would break before he did, that much he knew from experience.

The serpent rushed out from the wave with barely any warning, immediately trying to consume him whole. It was enormous, a head nearly as tall as he was even when closed and an open maw that was almost large enough to fit the entire longship.

Leif blocked the fangs from overhead as a thrust drew blood from the creature’s mouth. His brothers at his side moved right behind him, adding their skjǫldr to the effort of keeping the monster’s mouth open. They both slashed into its open maw, drawing blood alongside him as the creature reeled back, hissing in pain.

At least, Leif really hoped that was pain he was hearing.

It went back into the water in a moment, disappearing from sight as they crested another wave.

“Eyes open! We’re not out of this yet!”

This journey had been filled with a lot of shouting thus far, and he suspected that wasn’t about to change. Assuming they lived that long in the first place.

As the ship rode down the wave, a scream of panic came from behind him. Spinning around, every member of the crew was stunned at the sight of the flying serpent. The monster had gained enough speed and height to soar out of the wave crest as it rushed towards the mast.

It understood on a deeper level than he suspected how easy they would be to kill. Without their sail, the waves would control their movements. They’d become slow compared to the massive aquatic predator they were facing, guaranteeing that their ship would eventually capsize to its efforts.

But they were Vikings. It would take more than this creature of myth to defeat them.

Leif dropped his blade, reached down, and grabbed the nearest oar. With all the strength he could muster, he pulled against the ship, willing it to turn.

No man could turn a ship this size alone, not in the time that he was trying to, not at the speed they were sailing at. But then again, Leif wasn’t pulling alone. Six hands grasped the oar as the sound of cracking wood filled their ears. They succeeded.

The ship turned. The serpent would fly overhead, barely missing their mast as it went. Both parties unharmed.

But then Freydis loosed another shot, burying into its barely open eye. The serpent howled in pain as it failed to fully submerge, writhing in the water. Its wild movements put them on a collision course, the ship ramming headfirst into the creature’s side. Scale met hull and both cracked, the sound deafening even in this storm.

“Now! Focus on the head and cracked scale!”

His hjǫrr and skjǫldr were back in his hands within a moment, never losing track of where they were. He put every drop of strength he’d ever had into stabbing the cracked armor of the mighty sea serpent, his brothers and crew quickly doing the same.

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Blood flowed freely, so much so that it dyed even these tumultuous waters red. And then it moved.

“Back! Down!”

His order came out as quickly as he saw the creature’s movement, but some of his crew was still green. They were eager to prove themselves on the sea, and none of them were incapable. Leif truly believed that the twenty most capable men or women from Brattahlíð3 were all on this ship. Assuming his father was excluded of course. But even still, many were inexperienced with ship warfare.

And inexperience kills.

The tail of the serpent lashed out wide as most of his crew ducked below it. Two men didn’t, the sound of shattered steel and crushed bone filling the air as both men flew broken and bloody into the waves.

It lashed out again, trying to find their mast once more despite its lack of sight. The tail whipped through the air a second time, slashing the middle of their sail as it did.

Their speed dropped almost immediately as blades of all shapes hacked at the moving limb, another arrow burying into a still bleeding eye.

“Thorstein! Patch that sail!”

Perhaps there was someone else that could climb the mast in this situation, someone that wasn’t family. But Leif had to know that it would get done and fast; otherwise, they’d be dead in the water. Literally.

His brother moved fast, grabbing the needle and thread from beneath the planks with speed and precision. Not everything had a known location on the ship, but Leif had made sure that every man and woman onboard knew where the repair tools were. Anything else could be found with time, but ship repairs had to be immediate.

Water was beginning to roll in from the cracked hull, slowly at first but that would change with time.

“Gunnbjorn! Patch that hole!”

The man moved quickly, grabbing planks, a hammer, and iron nails with speed nearly matching Thorstein. The Vikings gathered at the bow of the ship continued their assault on the beast even as they made way for Gunnbjorn to do his work. They’d be ankle deep in water for the rest of this trip, but that much was a guarantee already with these waves.

“Kill it! Don’t let it breathe!”

A sea serpent didn’t breathe air, of course, but the idiom worked. The Vikings laid into the serpent as it convulsed in the water before them. It tried to escape almost immediately, but its long length worked against it. While the other scales were still intact, there was only so much hacking from proper steel that the hardened hide could take.

Within a minute the sail and hull were repaired as waves continued to toss the ship around. The sea serpent had escaped, but it would be short lived. The trail of blood was easy to follow.

Leif made his way to the back of the ship once more, weapons stowed and ready. It only took a few moments of rowing to get their ship back on course and chasing after the wounded monster.

They found it quickly, it’s wounds too severe to allow it to dive deep or swim quickly. Once more, the four of them shot at the creature while cresting the waves. After a dozen volleys, they found the serpent to be unmoved since the last wave.

“Vikings!” He shouted to his crew. “We sailed west in search of food, and we have found it. Tonight, we feast on this beast of legend!”

An uproar of cheers filled the air as they continued to approach the floating corpse. It truly was enormous now that they were looking at it up close. The creature was at least five ships long if not more, and the scales were harder than their iron. It took them over an hour to hack the thing to pieces even with the sail up and all hands holding an axe. The waves weren’t kind to them today.

The scales they stored in the hull, the weight of each one incredible. They wouldn’t slow down the ship, though. It was built for tons and easily handled the new cargo.

Once the scales had been removed and stored, they began to eat the raw meat. They’d never get a fire going in these waves and none of them had eaten a proper meal in nearly two seasons. That combined with the delicious flavor of the meat caused them to eat perhaps too greedily. There was too much for all of them to consume in one sitting, though, so they began to stow the flesh as well.

Until they crested the next wave.

Leif looked east, back where they had sailed from, and saw half a dozen sea serpents swimming towards them.

“Sail down! Oars!”

The crew got to work immediately as Leif tossed the remainder of the serpent carcass into the water. He got to his oar just as the sail unfurled.

They were fast, even faster now that they’d all been fed such a hearty meal, but there was no getting around the inevitable.

The serpents were gaining on them and fast. Losing two rowers might have cost them their lives, the extra hands sorely missed already.

As they broke through the next wave, Leif could see that the seas would clear up soon. A little further past that and they’d sail into a massive fog bank. They had a chance; they just had to keep going.

It was no wonder his father had warned them about sailing west if this was waiting for them. But still, they wouldn’t stop. So long as there was ocean to sail, Vikings would sail it. No matter the danger.

They broke through the waves, finding themselves in choppy waters rather than the colossal waves they’d been sailing through before. The longship cut through those like they didn’t exist, gaining speed quickly now that the worst of the weather was behind them. Leif allowed himself to look back, but no serpents followed them into the fog bank. They had a moment to breathe.

And that’s when he heard it. The sound of rushing water in the distance, hidden by the mist. The ship accelerated even as wind began to fall out of the sail, turning slowly in place as a powerful tide grabbed hold of them. They were sailing towards a waterfall. In the middle of the ocean.

No, not the middle, he thought as he broke out in a cold sweat. The end.

“Unrig the sail! Fasten one corner to each end of the ship! Quickly!”

It took a moment for the crew to obey the order, bizarre as it was. But he didn’t become Hersir4 of this crew by giving bad orders, no matter how crazy they sounded at the time. His father had told him a story once, something that he had never confirmed as truth. His homeland held many waterfalls and it was common knowledge that they couldn’t be escaped without incredible speed or luck. Most said they couldn’t be survived either. But an old friend of Erik’s had claimed to have done just that. The man said he rigged the sail flat above the ship to slow the fall. The man even claimed that the ship survived and continued to sail at the bottom.

Leif had never believed that story, but he prayed with everything he had that the man was telling the truth.

The ship was turned around in the riptide of the looming waterfall. They’d be upon it soon enough if the deafening sound was any indication, and only two corners of the sail were rigged. They had to rig the rest but had nothing to tie it to.

“Thorvald. Grab hold of this end of rope. Thorstein too. Hold onto it with all the strength you have.”

Leif handed his brothers an unrigged corner of the sail as he removed his armor and weapons. He recognized the looks he was getting; he was rather used to receiving them after all. They thought him mad.

Grabbing onto the loose end of the rope with his teeth, he climbed up the mast. The length should be long enough, he mused, before grabbing it once more in hand and shouting one more command.

“Freydis! Gunnbjorn! Reach into the water and grab me on the other side!”

After confirming that the two hear him and moved to the right side of the shop, he leapt while holding onto the rope with one hand.

The ice-cold water greeted him as he dove in deep, quickly swimming under the ship as the current dragged them both. But that was part of the plan.

The combination of the taught rope and the speed he gathered in the dive carried him to the other side of the ship, where he lacked the remaining strength to resurface through the current. Grabbing hold of the hull with his free arm, Leif banged his head against the wood with all the force he could muster. Before the cold could claim him, two hands reached down and grabbed him, pulling him from the water.

Heaving, he handed the rope off as he tried to give the order to rig the free corners of the sail to each other. They were running out of time, something Leif knew all too well now that he’d been in the water. The world would end soon enough and they’d have to hope there was something beneath it. He could taste blood in his mouth from how fiercely his teeth had clenched in the cold.

“Freydis and Gunnbjorn, grab that rope from Leif and rig it to the unrigged short corner!”

Thorvald took command and barked orders in his stead while quickly helping him with his wet clothes.

“I can hear the songs now, brother. Leif Erikson, legendary Viking and explorer, killed by some cold water.”

The words had little bite as they both worked to get him out of his soaked clothes. All their clothes were wet by now, but there was a world of difference between splashes of the freezing stuff and being fully submerged in it. Still, Leif whispered between clenched teeth.

“And yet they will sing of me.”

His brother looked at him then, resignation clear on his face.

“They will sing of all of us. The sagas will remember how the children of Erik the Red slew a sea serpent and ate its flesh.”

They both knew what was approaching, that nobody would hear of their deeds to retell them later. But that didn’t matter. In this life or the next, their deeds would be retold.

“Everyone! Rig yourself to your bench or wedge yourself under the planks. Hold fast!”

They worked as fast as they could, some tying knots while others moved under the planks. Leif tied himself to his bench as he laid down, unwilling to miss the sight before him.

If I am to die, then I shall die. But no man, monster, or god will take this sight from me.

The ship gained speed for a moment, and then they were out of the fog. Most of the crew watched as the ocean gave out beneath them. There was no surprise, no fear, no uncertainty in their eyes. Every one of them had set sail with him knowing they were likely to die. After all, there was nothing west of Grœnland5. Erik the Red had said as much himself. Nothing but death.

But better to die a Viking’s death than starve to death in the cold. A smile worked its way to Leif’s face as they plummeted from the sky. It tasted like salt and blood.

The wind rushed past them as they fell from the world, air pushing into the sail to slow their descent. Wood groaned as the crew passed out one by one from the pressure swings and lack of air.

All the while Leif held on, determined to see this to the end. His eyes watered and his ears bled until the sound of a sail tearing filled his them to bursting, an echo impossibly loud with the screeching wind all around him. The stitching they had needed thanks to the sea serpent had come undone.

That was the last thing he saw before he passed out, succumbing to the darkness.

Leif felt a firm hand grasping his shoulder, shaking him viciously. He had to admit, the afterlife felt much like it’s previous, more mundane Cousin.

“Leif! Look!”

He opened his eyes to see what death had to offer him. All around him were his crew and the cracked and leaking hull of his ship. They lay in the ocean as the sounds of crashing water filled his bloody ears. He looked behind him and saw a waterfall, stretching up far past the clouds and anything he could see.

“We survived?”

He couldn’t help but ask the question as his sister tackled him in a warm hug.

“We survived, Leif. You were right. There is more land to the west!”

Looking over her shoulder, he saw the truth of it with his own two eyes. There was land in the distance.