I know Northman wasn't his real human surname, but I'm going to use it anyhow, just to make it a little more straightforward.

NOTE: This story is a completely separate piece of fictional writing to the Sookie Stackhouse novels and the True Blood show. I am just using the character of Eric Northman and his past. I have changed and added a few details just to make the story flow more easily. I do not own the character of Eric Northman in anyway. NO VAMPIRES. ALL HUMAN.


Dawnfire

Her gentle beauty bewitched a Viking heart.

The Northumbrian Coast of Scotland, 1078 A.D.

The sky over the North Sea had barley begun to pale. Heavy gun-metal grey seas rolled, lumbering to the foot of the cliffs and broke there, dashing themselves endlessly against the staunch wall of St. Abb's Head, booming and hissing their displeasures as they had been doing, futilely, since the beginning of time.

Against the roiling, inky-purple night sky stood the ancient tower of St. Abb's, its tall, portentous silhouette commanding the headland. In the thick stone walls, the tiny windows were slits of darkness like the eyes of a sleeping beast, and puncturing the writhing clouds was the fantastically turreted and dormered profile, its stepped gable and massive parapets a clear warning to any would be violator.

The Scots sentry, huddled out of the salty wind on a turret of the tower, stared out eastward over the water with little enthusiasm as he stifled a yawn. In his many years of loyal service to the earl, there had not been a seaward raid, and there was no reason to believe one would come this night. In truth, he thought pridefully, St. Abb's had never been taken by surprise, had never been overrun during the few frightening Viking attacks of the past two centuries. There has always been a steadfast laird at St. Abb's, and Robert Renfrew, even though he was growing old, was still a good man. His son, Ian, although hot-headed, would someday be a proper laird, too.

The sentry scratched at the chafed skin under his wool tunic, then he abruptly tensed. Something did not quite fit the pattern of empty sky, empty seas, to which he had grown accustomed these many nights he'd stood watch as one of the constant nights guards. Fully alert now, he walked into the raw April wind to the edge of the turret and strained his eyes into the awakening sky, scanning the dark sea.

Yes! A black shadow fled before the wind, scudding noiselessly over the foam-tipped waves, like an ominous dark bird of prey.

Another shadow followed, then another.

The sentry counted five before he sounded the frantic alarm to wake the sleeping Hall: "Vikings! The Northman attack! To arms! Vikings!"