Disclaimer: The show and its characters belong to Paramount. No profit is being made from this story and no infringement is intended.
AN I: This story is AU (Alternate Universe), so if that's not your cup of tea... you know the deal. This is the friendship version; for anyone interested, the Slash version will be posted at the Warp 5 Archive after I've posted the final chapter here.
AN II: The idea for this story was based on an e-mail exchange I had with Glory1863 a while ago about AU and history fics. I'd like to thank her for the inspiration, and Gabi and The Libran Iniquity for betaing the story. All remaining mistakes – and some poetic license taken with historical fact – are mine and mine alone.
Enjoy!
"In this year terrible portents appeared over the land of Northumbria, and sorely frightened the people. There were immense flashes of lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine immediately followed these signs; and a little after that in the same year, on the eighth of June, the raiding of heathen men miserably devastated God's church in Lindisfarne island by looting and slaughter."
(The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, on the Vikings' attack on Lindisfarne in AD 793)
Chapter 1
There had been portents: flashes of lightning, famines, all sorts of signs and warnings. Dragons, even. You'd think that a fiery dragon crossing your way would make you wonder whether something fishy was going on. Well, and if people had paid the portents a little more attention rather than cowering in their homesteads, the heathen raiders might not have walked all over Lindisfarne quite so easily. They could have made preparations: palisades, pit traps, archers waylaying the arriving mob. The tactical possibilities were numerous, if you gave it some thought.
You had to pay attention to the dragons, of course.
Nearly a hundred years later, there were no dragons or celestial fireworks. The only portent Maelcolm could remember was a wooden cart accidentally set on fire, and the resulting squabble that had entertained the village for a good part of the day. Eventually, the High Reeve had decided that it didn't matter whether Leofric had dropped the torch accidentally or on purpose, and that compensations must be made. Hereward had gone home with one of Leofric's goats and a triumphant smile on his face, and Leofric had told anyone who would listen that the cart had been missing a wheel, anyway.
Not much of a portent, really. Then again, maybe portents only appeared when holy places were threatened. Maybe God and the Saints had decided that for a small coastal village inhabited by farmers a burning cart was enough.
It made no difference, in the end. The attack caught them completely by surprise, and even the fence guards could not do more than rouse the sleeping village with their cries of warning. There was no time to barricade the doors or send the children to hide in the woods. All they could do was grab their weapons and pray.
Maelcolm wasn't asleep at the time. His wife of two months, Ealdgyth, tended to snore, and he was still getting used to sharing a bed. After sleep had evaded him for several hours, he had gotten up and sat down in a spot of moonlight in the doorway to mend his leather pouch. That was something he could do even in the semi-dark. While he methodically stitched the tear closed, he found his thoughts drifting to the summer before last, the hunt that had lasted for days and days. They'd slept next to the fire and ventured deep into the woods, and there were no chores and no field work to be done. He'd enjoyed the solitude, too. In the past few weeks these memories had returned to him more often than they probably should. Maelcolm suspected that it was a sin for a man to want to be in the woods hunting rather than at home with his wife.
His wife, who snored. And who on their first night had taken his beaver fur, claiming that she needed it more than her husband. After all, she was his elder by sixteen summers and felt the night chill in her bones. And no, they couldn't share. Maelcolm had been left with a thin woven blanket that smelled of damp straw, and had shivered his way through his wedding night, wishing he was back in the woods.
Had it been anyone but Ealdgyth, he would have insisted on sharing the fur. A man shouldn't be afraid of his wife. Ealdgyth, though... she could get so bloody angry. And she was almost three fingers taller than himself. He knew it looked funny when she berated him, and he hated to have the neighbors laugh behind their hands.
Better to deal with a few sleepless nights, and keep his hunting equipment in good condition. It wasn't that she was a bad wife. She was quite friendly most of the time, and even pretty with her heavy blond braids, despite her forty summers. There were worse things than a little snoring.
Ealdgyth turned over in her sleep and sighed. Maelcolm glanced at the bed, wondering if he should crawl back in with her. It was getting chilly, and she wouldn't notice if he slipped under the fur blanket with her. Not much she could do about it in the morning, was there? He laid his pouch aside, and was about to head for the bed when he heard the first shouts.
Later, he only remembered that it had all gone very fast. The guards' cries immediately stirred the village to life; torches were lit, every available weapon was grabbed to meet the enemy when he came over the fence. Crying children were pushed into stables and told to keep quiet, while all the village dogs barked as if possessed by an insane demon. He remembered Ealdgyth beside him; of course she had refused to hide in the house.
The invaders didn't climb the fence. The posts splintered like dry firewood under the impact of their axes and they kicked the broken remnants aside as they advanced, larger-than-life silhouettes against the flicker of their torches. A cloud had darkened the moon, and he only caught glimpses of their faces, some of which weren't faces at all. He saw a man with a sharp beak, and one who had teeth protruding from his forehead. They hurled firebrands at the straw-covered roofs and yelled like no human being would, a sound as if the evil spirits had awakened all at once.
Ealdgyth was among the first killed. The bird-man came towards them, and Maelcolm raised his sword when the bird-man grinned at him – grinned behind his beak, which was only a mask, of course it was – and then suddenly turned and ran his sword through Ealdgyth's stomach. She didn't scream. Her mouth opened for air as she dropped to her knees, and he saw that she was still alive and in terrible pain. The bird-man yanked his weapon back, a sound like cloth dragged through muddy water. Ealdgyth slumped to the ground, and Maelcolm lifted his sword again. He aimed for the grinning mouth, but the blade caught the bird-man in the throat and that was when he understood that these people weren't demons or evil spirits. Their blood was red and warm and they whimpered when they were dying, and the man was dying, on the ground next to Ealdgyth, who was smiling at him through a mouthful of blood.
He wanted to say something to her and found that he couldn't speak. He knelt down on the ground and wiped his bloody hands on the grass, not wanting to soil her when he touched her. She whispered something, but the world seemed to have exploded in sound and he could only see her lips moving. He grabbed her hand, and she smiled again. Her pain seemed to be gone, and he knew it had left her and had taken possession of the groaning bird-man, and he was glad. She coughed. More blood came out of her mouth, and he gently wiped her chin, using the sleeve of his shirt. Don't worry, he wanted to say, don't worry. It's only a little blood, we'll make it stop, don't worry. He'd almost cleaned it all off when he saw that her eyes were no longer focused on him. She was dead. And so was the bird-man.
He got to his feet. He could hear the cattle bellowing in their enclosures, and loud thumps and crashes from within the burning houses. The strangers had kicked in the doors and were throwing things out of the windows, things and sometimes people. He saw Leofric's wife on the ground with her clothes in tatters and one of them moving on top of her, and he saw Leofric lying there with his throat slit open to his ears.
Someone stepped into his view. It was one of them, one whose face wasn't covered by a mask or a helmet. He wasn't much older than Maelcolm, and his eyes were wide, flickering in the fire light.
He said a few words and lifted his sword, indicating something on the ground behind Maelcolm.
"I don't think so, you son of a whore." Maelcolm grabbed his own sword and swung towards him.
The man quickly brought up his weapon to block the blow. He yelled something and for a second Maelcolm thought he'd caught some of the words in the strange language. It distracted him, and he didn't see the next blow coming until it was almost too late. The man's blade hit the flat side of his sword, and he felt the impact as if someone had struck him on the shoulders. He stumbled back, and stepped on something soft and giving, something that could only be a body. Ealdgyth or the bird-man, he didn't know. That was when the man struck again, and this time Maelcolm lost his grip on the sword. He looked at the man who was going to kill him.
"My hands are wet," he raised his palms to show his opponent that they were slippery with blood. "Or I'd have killed you, you bastard."
The man spoke again, and this time Maelcolm did understand the words. "Shut up."
Maelcolm had no idea why he would understand a Norseman's strange gibberish, only that it wasn't gibberish. Somehow this man could talk to him, could tell him to shut up before he planted his sword in Maelcolm's throat.
"Shit-licking coward, let me get my sword back and we'll fight like men."
"You have a big mouth on you, haven't you?" The Norseman stepped closer, and Maelcolm was furious to see a grin emerging on the boyish face.
"I'll slit you open and choke you with your own guts."
"Seems to me I'm the one with the sword," the Norseman said in his strange accent and raised his weapon.
Maelcolm closed his eyes and tried to turn his thoughts to God and the Saints, but there was only blood and fire and a strange man who was laughing at him, for which Maelcolm wanted to rip his throat out.
Then something heavy hit his head, and he knew only darkness.
TBC....
I'd love to hear what you think so far!
