Looking around, Leif saw that he and Freydis were the only ones awake. That meant she was the first and only person to wake herself after the fall. Combined with her notably unbloodied ears, he was quite curious how she’d managed to do that, but those idle curiosities could wait until later.

“Rouse the others. We need to get to shore.”

Leif cut across the ship as he donned his brynja1, looking for one man in particular. Most of the water must have fallen out of their ship in the fall based on how little remained within, but what little remained rippled without his movement. If he sat around and watched it for long enough, there was little doubt that it would rise as well.

They’d never make it to shore if they kept taking on water. Not at this distance.

“Gunnbjorn! Wake up!” He shook the man as soon as he found him, knowing there was no one better to patch the hull of their ship. After all, he was the one who built it in the first place.

The man stirred, his trained reflexes kicking in immediately which caused him to sit up while drawing his hjǫrr.

“Calm yourself. We survived the fall but the ship is damaged and leaking. I need you to patch it. Can you do that?”

Leif’s words calmed the shipwright as understanding entered his eyes.

“Yes. Right away, Hersir.”

Leif left him to it as he made his way back to his seat. Freydis had done well with getting most of his crew back into the world of the living, and miraculously that included all eighteen of the men and women he’d fallen off the world’s end with. All of the Vikings he’d set sail with excluding Arne and Knud. He stiffened at the thought before shaking his head. They’d have time to mourn when they were safe.

“Oars!”

He found that simple commands worked best in moments of crisis, allowing the crew to ignore their thoughts and focus on action. Simple actions that would get them out of this sinking ship and onto dry land.

Their sail was mostly intact, though the tear had spread further up and down it. With what little wind they had and the effort it would take to repair and rig it, they’d lose more time in setting it up than they’d gain. If he couldn’t see land in the distance then maybe it would be different, but as it stood, they should only be an hour away by rowing and the wind wouldn’t get them there any faster.

The ship began to move in time with the oars as Leif fixed their heading towards the nearest landmass: west. Even as they gained distance from it, the waterfall was aggressively loud, forcing him to scream his orders even louder. Perhaps it was just the damage to his ears which made the cascading wall of water sound like thunder to him, but that didn’t really matter.

He wasn’t alone with his bloodied ears, after all, joined by all members of the crew. Save one.

Ask your questions later. Distractions could kill us all.

He chided himself for his curiosity, refocusing on the task at hand. The wooden oar groaned with the effort of his rowing as the ship stopped turning. Their efforts were even for a while, or at least about even. Everyone seemed a little awkward in their rowing, and Leif was no exception. Perhaps it was the fall that did it or the groggy state they were all in, but the ship would occasionally lurch left or right while they continued on their way. Usually this didn’t happen since one overzealous crew-mate could hardly overcome the efforts of over a dozen Vikings, but something was definitely different today.

Then Leif realized that he and Gunnbjorn normally sat on the same side of the ship. And yet they were sailing mostly straight. He was getting looks from his left as Thorvald was both surprised and riled up by the display. His brother doubled his efforts in an attempt to keep up with him, and surprisingly it worked. All the siblings knew themselves to be the strongest onboard, but they also knew the relative hierarchy. In terms of pure strength, it went in the order of succession: Leif, Thorvald, Freydis, and Thorstein. Any of his younger siblings matching his strength was normally assumed to be an impossible feat. But Leif wasn’t the one surprised.

After all, he hadn’t been rowing with his full strength.

“Oars! Landing speed!”

An unusual command so far from shore, but it was the simplest way to get his crew to row as fast as possible. With everyone putting their full strength into it, the ship lunged forward at shockingly fast. Gunnbjorn continued to race around, searching for leaks and patching them while the rest of his crew worked hard to outpace their neighbor. All the while, the Vikings bathed in the warmth of the afternoon sun.

There were no icebergs here for them to dodge, no snow or sleet for them to blink through. The sky wasn’t the overcast gray that they’d grown so accustomed to. The temperatures weren’t well below freezing, causing them to risk death by exposure for the audacity of being outside without heavy furs.

No, it felt like early summer or late spring. Birds flew through the sky on the horizon as their ship still picked up speed. The water was up to their ankles, cooling them slightly from their exertion and unfamiliarity with a hotter climate.

Leif had compelled these people to sail west in hopes that they’d find better land, better weather, and food. None of them expected to succeed, knowing that there likely was no more land to the west and, even if there was, the Great Winter would likely freeze them all the same despite the location.

And yet they succeeded. They did find new land, did find better weather, and, if the greenery he was now seeing didn’t deceive him, they’d soon find food as well.

Laughter sprang forth from the back row of the ship as the Viking Hersir lost himself to a rush of relief. It was contagious, his feelings reflected by every member of his crew. Their speed dropped as every breath became less focused on their oars and more focused on not doubling over, but none of them cared.

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They’d escaped the frozen lands that had claimed the lives of so many loved ones. Despite what everyone had said or thought, they’d found land.

Leif directed them a bit further south when they got closer, noting what looked to be a potential port town further north. He wouldn’t risk being sighted by locals until their ship was fully repaired, sail and all. The wind had picked up and shifted over the course of their journey, but their surprising rowing speed made the prospect of sailing unnecessary. A normally impossible thought, but here they were.

Leif was trying not to think about these things too much, whether it be his apparently incredible sight or the surge of strength from every member of his crew.

“Landing speed!”

But he’d have to think about these things soon. The longship crashed into the sand, the momentum carrying it further inland before finally stopping. He’d chosen a wooded area to allow them to remain undetected for as long as possible, ordering his crew into immediate action.

“No one is to engage any unknown local creatures or people until we have a fully repaired ship. If you recognize an animal, you may quietly hunt it. Thorvald and Thorstein, I need you two to scout to the north. Sten and Kare, to the west. Gunhild and Gertrud, to the south. The rest help me move this ship inland. Return back here in one hour.”

They moved at once, all of them armed and armored for combat as they leapt on land. A dozen Vikings took to the back of the ship as six of them disappeared into the trees.

“Push!”

They moved as one and began to push the longship further inland where they’d be less likely to be spotted. Contrary to his expectations, they didn’t need a break from pushing despite how few they were. Rather than the normal start-stop movement, they were able to somewhat smoothly move the ship through the soft forest floor. They continued in silence for a minute before Gunnbjorn spoke up quietly.

“Is it just me or is this fifteen-ton ship surprisingly light?”

“Stop!”

Leif gave the command as everyone looked around nervously. They’d not been expecting their Hersir to take an offhanded remark like that so seriously.

“To the sides. We will see if we can lift this thing.”

His crew looked at him like he was a madman, but followed his orders nonetheless. There were times when a full Viking crew would carry their longships inland, but that was with a crew one hundred strong. To split that weight only twelve ways and yet carry it should have been impossible.

“Heave!”

And yet, when grunts of effort filled the forest, the ship moved. Sweat poured from their faces as their longship slowly lifted off the ground.

“Down!”

And then it came back down. A dozen were strong enough to lift but that was all. With another six, they’d be likely to carry the thing properly. An insane notion but here they were.

Either way, they’d moved three ship lengths inland which would conceal them well enough for now. They’d have to cover their tracks afterwards to ensure they couldn’t be followed, but that could come later. After all, it was the last thing on anyone’s mind at the moment.

“Gather wood and stone. Prepare camp.” They could dwell on what all of this meant when they had the time. For now, there was work to do.

They spent the hour felling trees and cutting out underbrush, allowing a small clearing to take hold in their small corner of the woods. A clearing filled to bursting with working Vikings.

After an hour of work, they’d made some serious progress on their rudimentary camp. Leif did his part as well, focusing on a support scaffold for the longship that would be critical to repairing it once they had a few more hands to lift it up there. His scouts returned right before they had finished, and the reports were optimistic.

Plenty of wild vegetables and berries which indicated that it really was early summer here. There were plenty of animal trails as well as the animals themselves, but they were mostly consistent with what he’d seen or heard about back home. His brothers had even seen a deer, they claimed.

“You chose not to fell it?”

His question left them looking around awkwardly. Something happened that caused shame or at the very least would get them chastised. They were in a foreign land though and he couldn’t afford too much patience or tolerance, not even for his brothers. Especially for his brothers. They were Vikings first, and as their Hersir, it was his responsibility to ensure the safety and success of everyone in his crew.

“Out with it. What happened?”

To his surprise, it seemed that Thorvald was the guilty one. The older of the two would have been all to happy to sell their youngest brother down the river, especially if it meant making himself look better. Besides, Thorstein was always more than happy to tell him everything immediately, even if it would make him look bad. But the boy had too much respect for both his brothers to risk antagonizing either, putting him in an especially awkward situation the longer Thorvald stayed silent.

“Thorvald. Tell me.”

That finally seemed to break him out of it.

“I do not know how this could happen, Leif. I drew the bow to aim at the buck, but my drawstring snapped.”

“Show me.”

The man pulled out the bow and arrow in question, and it was just as Leif suspected. There was nothing especially wrong with the arrow, no sharp edges on the knock. At least, it was nothing worse than usual. The drawstring had no signs of fraying, indicating that it was in good condition. It just snapped. Presumably the tiny imperfections present in any arrow could cause such an outcome, if the wielder used drastically more force than needed that is.

There was little point denying it for much longer. But Leif decided that a demonstration would be needed to get everyone on the same page, or at least that it would get them there faster.

“Help me finish the ship scaffold.”

Wordlessly they moved to assist him, but not without giving each other a relieved glance. It took only a short while before the scaffold was fully built and capable of holding weight, prompting Leif to call everyone over. Those that were with him before knew what was happening, immediately positioning themselves and the recently returned scouts on the sides of the ship as they squatted, ready to lift.

“Heave!”

The ship moved while the Vikings lifted as one. It was a short walk to where they built the scaffold, and several of them were panting and sweating heavily as they went. Once they were positioned just perfectly, they began to set it down.

As soon as they were done, several men collapsed to the ground in exhaustion while others bent over heaving. His brothers and the others that remained composed enough to stand simply looked at him, confused. No, exasperated.

“What is this, Leif? How did you know us capable of such feats of strength? How are we capable of them?”

His crew looked up at him with expectation. As if he was any less confused than them.

“I do not know how, but we have, all of us, become strong. Impossibly so. Perhaps it is this place. Perhaps it is the song of our deeds that empowers us. Maybe it was consuming the flesh and blood of Jormungandr’s spawn that caused this.

“Or maybe we really did die when we fell off the world. Perhaps this strange place is actually Valhǫll2, and this is the strength bestowed upon us by the All Father. What I do know is that we will use this strength. We will build up here, we will prepare here, and we will raid. Wherever we are, what we are will not change. What are we?”

“Vikings!”

The shouts of seventeen people filled the clearing as if they were over a hundred strong. Perhaps that, too, was part of their newfound power. Only time would tell what their new limits were.

A grin spread across Leif’s face as he looked over his crew. Only eighteen of them made it on land, but they had the strength of a hundred. No matter what this land would throw at them, they’d surpass it. They’d take it.

Seventeen Vikings looked back at him with hunger and excitement in their eyes.

“We better get to work.”