There
was no dragon on the stern. No
valkarie. Not even a snail shaped
curl. It was a skull. A mysterious ship was approaching their
vessel and it had a skull on its stern.
There had been rumors of such a ship sailing the seas and it was bad
news for the merchants. They were no
warriors. They were sellers of goods
such as furs and clubbed seals. The
ships all banded together and the men nervously clutched their swords and axes
as they braced for the imminent attack.
They were not excited about battling Gunnbjörn the Slayer but Viking
code forbade them from retreating. If they
were meant to die that day, it was out of their hands. There was nothing that they could do. Dieing in battle was a good death. As the Slayer’s dragon boat drew near, it
suddenly stopped. It was about 100 yards
away. The merchants were relieved. Perhaps their numbers intimidated Gunnbjörn
and his men. They took a deep breath in
unison and anxiously awaited the Slayer’s next move. Near an hour had passed and nothing
happened. Gunnbjörn’s ship began turning
around. It seemed that he was
retreating. Could it be? The Slayer was running away from a battle
that he had instigated? There was a
commotion on one of the boats. Gunnbjörn
had swum 100 yards in freezing water. By
time the merchants had realized this, Gunnbjörn’s ship was coming right at
them, full speed—backwards. This was an
easy maneuver with a dragon boat. While
his ship was coming, Gunnbjörn was flaying people left and right, showing no
signs of exposure to the sub-zero waters.
He sliced men as they came at him in every direction. He had single handedly cleaned one ship
himself by time his reinforcements arrived.
Needless to say, the merchants were easily defeated.
The Slayer would destroy a dozen such ships over the
next couple months. Terror was instilled
to all seafarers in the Ganesh’s Norway.
The rumor of Gunnbjörn siding with Strom was apparently true. This was no longer a little rebellion, it was
a nightmare.
###
More Greatest Evil
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