Iron Cross

Blood Runes-5-2

“Land.” He whispered.

Holger at first could not get out of his torpor but finally lifted his head and confirmed Bjarni´s statement. A cry arose from his throat relieving all the internal tensions accumulated over many days.

The drakkar traveled along the coast until it reached the mouth of a creek that poured its water into the sea, which would assure to them the provision of fresh water. They landed there and set up camp with the few items they had left on board. A hunting raid assured them a few rodents that would satisfy the most immediate hunger, although partially. Fishing from the shore in the afternoon provided them with a more abundant and reliable source of protein. At dusk they lit a fire, with which they could warm their shivering bodies from the cold of the preceding days. Equally they could wash and put to dry their nauseating clothes after many days at sea.

Having been through so many hardships when they were lost at sea, enjoying these modest amenities completely changed their mood, darkened only by the memory of the comrade lost in the waters. Nothing presaged the events that would ensue.

Bjarni was staying naked as they had washed and put their clothes to dry. Holger then saw in his neck a fob pending from a natural fiber rope.

“You’re carrying Thor's hammer as an amulet.”

“Aye, my mother gave it to me when I was a kid, and I've never detached from it.”

“And can you say that it has protected you well?”

“So far it has not failed me. And you know well the situations that I have gone through.”

Mjölnir or Thor's hammer plays a special role in Norse mythology. Thor was one of the major deities of Norse pantheon and as such he was associated with certain characteristics. He was depicted as a red hair and beard giant who was the god controlling thunders and lightning storms, but also the protector of humanity and the god of strength, healing and fertility. One of his key features was the possession of the hammer, with which performed his feats. Manufactured by two mythical dwarves, the hammer was a powerful weapon capable of leveling mountains. It is usually shown as a short-handled tool with two symmetrical heads, which were often depicted covered in bas-relief designs.

After a week to repair forces the seamen put again to sea, this time keeping always the coast in sight. Two days later they saw one of the frequent looming storm fronts in the north, so at the sight of a cove they introduced the longship through its narrow entrance.

As soon as the ship docked they led it to the land, beaching it on the sandy shore and ran to a thick grove of trees a hundred paces from the beach. Although some rays could reach them there at least it offered them qualms against the strong winds that the hard weather preannounced.

The storm was swift; amid lightning and wind gusts the initial drops of rain soon gave rise to a veritable deluge. The sky was completely covered with dark clouds that resembled night. The sailors covered their bodies with spare sails they had taken from the boat and brought large fallen tree limbs that still had their leaves or conifer spikes with which they built a barrier of limited effectiveness against wind and rain. The cold was intensified by the sudden climate change and the north wind, but it was impossible to light a fire. The Yucatecan crewmembers were accustomed to hurricanes, so they knew how to move in front of a storm, but could not acclimate to low temperatures.

Eventually the storm stopped, but as it was too late to resume navigation so the seamen prepared to spend the night at the site and for this purpose set up a camp and a bonfire in which they cooked their food. They were exhausted and went to sleep near the fire to overcome fatigue. Holger made the first call.

Bjarni jerked awake without knowing why. He suddenly felt something heavy falling on his legs. In the light of the dying fire he rose and looked over the dark lump that had fallen on him. Horrified he found that it was the body of the youngest of the Yucatán men, which had rolled on the ground with his neck pierced by an arrow. Bjarni´s cries awoke his companions as he took his sword and shield that were always near him even while he was asleep. At that time he diffusely perceived at the uncertain light of dawn a quantity of dark shadows rapidly approaching the camp. The seamen scarcely succeeded to take their weapons and try to fend off aggressors but the numerical difference and surprise could not be offset by the desperate defense. One by one the defenders were shot down by blows of spears and clubs. Bjarni could see his old friend and comrade of many trips Holger falling buried under a human tide unloading blows on the fallen comrade even when he had stopped moving. Desperate Bjarni launched on the mass of flesh and muscle waving his fearsome iron sword, piercing, beheading and crushing bodies with his vision clouded by anger. At one point he felt a sharp pain in his right side, and as he turned he realized he had received a spear thrust of a strong warrior who attacked him from behind. With one blow the Norseman beheaded his attacker but behind him he saw a number of Skraelings who were approaching him from there. Instead of running in the opposite direction trying to put distance with his enemies and still under the effects of the adrenaline rush he threw himself them upon the compact row clearing the way before him. The steel sword used like a whirlwind cut heads, members and spears while its owner crossed the lines of his enemies, who realizing they could not counter his push finally chose to let him pass.

Bjarni ran for hours, with an energy product of terror and anger, until finally the adrenaline was exhausted and he fell into a deep natural ditch, probably the dry bed of a stream of a seasonal course, and there remained covered by the shrubbery fed by the residual moisture of the creek, covering and keeping him safe from his pursuers.

He never knew how long he spent in that ditch; as he finally awakened he found his body filled with cuts and bruises and severe muscle aches by the position in which the body had fallen.

Laboriously he got up and left the dry bed. He looked around and saw nobody stalking but felt that the scenery was vaguely familiar. He started walking aimlessly and after a short while the snow slowly began to fall. Darkness added another concern to those he already had forcing him to wander directionless in an unknown location.

Suddenly a strange rock formation caught his attention, and then his mind cleared. Chance had led him to a place he had visited in their original trip to Markland, almost five years earlier. The revelation was reassuring because Bjarni felt confident he could find the huts that he and his companions had built then, which would provide him shelter and the possibility to survive the winter if he could obtain food, though this in the snowy and deserted taiga would not be easy. Once the winter had past he would try to find the abandoned longship and then try to return to Greenland in a difficult solo sailing.

It is here that our story began.

CHAPTER 5

HEIMDALL

Bjarni spent that month among great difficulties and privations. Food was scarce as well as fuel to keep the fire to warm the hut. He had spent the first two days braving the cold in the cabin until he could start a fire by friction and since then sought to preserve it. On one of his trips in search of food he had been chased by a bear that had the same purpose. The Norseman had finally managed to make the beast lose his trail and returned exhausted to the cabin.

One day during the low tide Bjarni walked along the beach and saw amid the sea mists what at first seemed like a wreck but as he approached he could first recognize as a bone and that after inspecting it more thoroughly he identified as a whale jaw. It measured several feet long and was quite heavy, but still was not the biggest specimens that Bjarni had seen in his dilated tours in several beaches. He decided to transport it to the hut to carry out a project that had been taking shape in his head. The sailor drove the long, thin bone around five hundred steps and deposited it outside of the cabin and there began a task that would consume a week to work it out.

With the tip of the sword -with which he had taken so many lives since arriving in those same shores years before- Bjarni began to carve his message into the jawbone, a laborious task despite the sharp edge of the weapon. Rune after rune was recorded in the bone, forming an encrypted message.

Bjarni was one of the few seamen that at that time mastered the runic writing, knowledge normally linked to a certain status in the Norse society, and even connected to divination as well as esoteric knowledge and magical activities. The purpose that animated the seaman was to put on record a certain knowledge he had acquired in recent times, so that if anything happened to him and he could not return to Greenland, he could however make sure that the information he had gathered during his stay in Yucatán would not get definitively lost . With unique application and patience he used for this work the part of the day he did not need for obtaining food, water and firewood or sleep.

One day Bjarni watched the progress of the written text and reviewed it. The examination left him satisfied. He proceeded to polish burrs and remove loose bone bits. The inscription looked as follows.

The Norwegian went on several more days with his work. As he finally felt that it was finished he dug a long hole in the ground about three feet deep and proceeded to bury the bone, covering it and packing the soil about it. The idea was to prevent hungry animals from gnawing it and thus delete the message he had so hard written . He imagined that only by chance a future searcher would find the jaw and even more unlikely he would be able to read and interpret the text.

Another month passed and the first signs of spring began to appear. Flocks of birds started returning north after their winter break. Small rodents populated the fields looking for seeds and stems to feed their newborns. Bears ended their hibernation period and constituted a heightened danger, while fish filled the streams.

Bjarni decided it was time to leave. He made several piles of rocks with special forms to be able to find the place again even with bad weather, but in his heart he knew that he would never return a third time to the place that had sheltered him and saved his life. When the sailor walked away his guts shrug although he avoided looking back.

Bjarni could never find the longship so he judged that his only chance was to walk north along the sea coast in an attempt to find a ship that had docked in those immense solitudes. He knew that the chances of this happening were remote, and that he was much more likely to run into fierce Skraelings who would put an end to his suffering but anyway had no better plan.

After three days and three nights out his supplies and his energy had been exhausted, so that he prepared a camp at the mouth of a stream in the sea and there lit a fire and set fishing. Unable to catch fish in the stream Bjarni had no choice than collecting some bivalve clams that were buried and reappeared on the wet sand of the beach to the beat of the waves. Since that night Bjarni had no other food he set to cook the clams on the embers of the fire and eat them.