Wulfric's only consolation was that his death was likely to be mercifully quick. He might have forsaken his place in Arceus's embrace, but at least he wouldn't have to be terrified and in pain any longer. The northmen in front of him stood resolute in their shield wall. They had trained their whole life for this moment, to accept and embrace their deaths. Their pokemon stood behind them, disciplined and barely fidgeting. When one of the Kalosian Rhyhorn charged the line, Ivarr's Beartic jumped over the ranks of northmen and hurled the rock aligned back at their enemies.
"Don't give up," Torvald said to the men and women in the shield wall. He didn't raise his voice as Halvard might have done. He didn't have to. "Don't relent, not until they crush the last breath from your chest. Not until every last drop of blood you have is spilled." The warriors around him nodded, their faces hardening as they steeled their resolve.
Sigrund screamed by overhead as she returned from her charge to carry back the sacks of armor to the river. The Kalosian archers fired a volley of arrows at the Noivern to drive her back. She screamed as she winged higher into the upper air, and the northmen retreated a few paces to escape the force of her concussive blasts. Wulfric found himself pressed even closer against the iron grating that trapped them. The iron bars were cold against his flesh, and he remembered how earlier that day Dismas had managed to use his wings to cut through the padlock on the river gate. Of course the Chatot was not remotely strong enough to try and cut through the heavy iron portcullis, but it did give Wulfric an idea. Now that Sigrund had returned, he might just be able to make it work.
Wulfric shoved his way over to Ragnhildr and told her his plan. The warrior woman stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled a command to her dragon. Sigrund dove again, but this time before the archers could fire on her, she let loose with a long roar. The dragon's voice carried a physical force, driving the Kalosians back and holding them in place. "Torvald!" Wulfric shouted over the noise. "Have Branna unleash all the heat and flame she can on the edges of the grate!" Torvald did not waste time questioning Wulfric, and hollered for his Talonflame to do as the monk instructed. Ragnhildr and Svein ordered Geirr and Talvar to do the same, and soon the metal that joined the portcullis to the gateway arch glowed a dull red.
Wulfric reached out and grabbed the two closest warriors, Ivarr and a shield maiden he was fairly sure was named Helga. "Get your pokemon to attack the center of the gate, and hurry! Sigrund can't hold long." Ivarr barked the command to his Beartic, and Helga instructed her Bisharp to attack with everything it had. The portcullis began to groan as the metal strained under the force it was under. Skaldi ordered his Breloom to join the assault, and the grass aligned began to strike where Beartic could not reach.
Under Wulfric's direction, the fire aligned continued their attack on the outer edge of the portcullis, though Wulfric could see that their time was growing short. Sigrund was beginning to tire, and they could only keep up their desperate attack on the gate so long as the Noivern was able to cover them. Halvard seemed to notice this as well, because he ordered the other pokemon to stand down. He swung up onto Steinarr's back and murmured something to the Gogoat. The grass aligned bleated and lowered his horned head. With a snort, Steinarr charged at the weakened portcullis, and with a scream of wrenching metal tore the grate from its supports. The northmen gave a ragged cheer as Halvard swung his mount back around.
"Retreat!" he bellowed. "Run for your lives! Get to the river!" He tapped his heels against Steinarr's flanks, and they galloped over the Kalosian plain. Wulfric let himself get caught up in the flood of warriors stampeding out of the gate. Dismas fluttered near his head as Sigrund and Branna soared overhead. Ragnhildr sprinted by him, dragging Svein by one hand. "Torvald!" she screamed over her shoulder.
Her brother stood just outside the gate, Skerast wrapped around his wrists and forearms. When the first of the Kalosians ran out after them, Torvald cut them down as they passed, but even he could not hold forever. "Torvald, get clear!" Wulfric shouted, but the warrior obviously could not hear him. He glanced up at Dismas. "I need your help, my friend." He took a deep breath and shouted "Torvald, run! We still need you!"
Dismas opened his beak wide and boomed, in a passable facsimile of Wulfric's voice amplified several times, "Torvald, run! We still need you!" Torvald seemed to wake from a deep trance as he drove one of his blades through the torso of a final Galletian before turning to run after the rest of the northmen.
Skaldi and several of the retreating warriors were setting fire to the fields as they ran by, covering their retreat with a long curtain of fire. Several Kalosians ran through the flames, beating out the fires that smoldered on their armor. Their valor did them credit, but it did not stop the arrows of Skaldi's men from cutting them down. When a great dark shadow appeared on the far side of the flames, the northern priest looked positively gleeful. He nocked an arrow in his bow and waited as Duke Verron flew through the fiery curtain on his Rapidash. Skaldi let fly, and the arrow flew straight and true, puncturing the duke's throat in the gap between helmet and breastplate. Skaldi watched as the duke toppled from his horse and grasped at his throat before turning and running back to the ships.
The northmen hastened down the river to where they had left their longships and boarded as quickly as possible. The few warriors they had left behind to cover their retreat sat at their oars, ready to shove off as soon as soon as Halvard gave the word. When Ulfi saw Torvald, Ragnhildr and Wulfric, the boat builder nearly collapsed into tears. "By the gods, how did you manage to get of there alive?"
Ragnhildr jumped into her longship. "A little quick thinking from Wulfric."
Torvald nodded. "We never would have made it this far without him."
Ulfi pulled the monk into a brief embrace. "I knew I wasn't wrong to put my faith in you," he said before taking his place at the oar. Wulfric sat down beside him and squared his shoulder. Though he was exhausted and sore, he knew that they needed to put as much distance between themselves and Camphorae as possible. Though Dismas and Branna had managed to intercept the Murkrow earlier, other messages would be sent out, and soon there would be patrols looking for them up and down the river. Though the current was now in their favor, the rivers in the Kalosian interior drifted along lazily and that alone was not likely to help them escape.
"Ready!" Torvald called from the rear of the ship. "Heave to! Row!"
The five longships cast off and began their journey back down river. Halvard picked his way down the center aisle of the longship and tapped the warrior across from Wulfric on the shoulder. When the man looked up, Halvard gestured at his oar further down the boat. The man stood carefully and went to take Halvard's place. The jarl sat down with a groan and took a minute to settle into the rhythm of pulling the oar. When he had the tempo down, he glanced over at Wulfric. "Well, that wasn't a complete disaster. At least we got the armor, and most of us made it out alive."
"It might make trading with the Kalosians a little more complicated down the line."
"That's a field to cross when it's time to till it." The jarl sighed. "How long do you think we have until they start trying to kill us again?"
Wulfric pondered for a moment. "The Camphorae soldiers are as bloodied and exhausted as we are. I think it won't be hard to get ahead of them. But they have allies up and down the river. All it takes are a few flying aligned to spread the message before everyone from here to Geosenge Village knows about us." The monk nodded to himself. "I don't think we need to worry much about pursuit. Your longships are faster than Kalosian river barges, but I suppose there's always the threat of an ambush. No, I think that what we need to worry most about are archers on the shore and any blockades they manage to set up in the river itself."
"I'll have Aesgir send the Sharpedo ahead of us. They might be able to stop any blockades early on. Anything they can't manage, Ivarr can set Dagmar on."
And so it went. Aesgir ordered Gunnar and Gunnhild downriver, and the Sharpedo tore off in rapid excitement, their dorsal fins kicking up large wakes as they sliced through the water. Dagmar drifted along with one clawed hand resting on the rail of the longship. The Beartic had been so exhausted after the fight at Camphorae's gates that he had been unable to drag himself aboard the longship, and now drifted lazily along in the warm waters of the river while he gathered his strength again.
Wulfric sympathized with the great white beast. All he wanted to do was curl up on his cot beside Halvard's hearth and sleep for a week. Every inch of him ached, and it was only going to get worse as the northmen fought to keep abreast of the Kalosians. He and Halvard had often discussed that the flight back down the river was certain to be the most dangerous part of the raid, and Wulfric needed to keep alert. After breaching the gates at Camphorae, the northmen know looked at him as far more than just a mouthpiece for Halvard's orders. He had planned the raid before the attack on Camphorae, but he was truly in command now.
The first attack came the day after their raid. Two troops of archers sprang up from the riverbanks and began to fire on the northmen. Wulfric saw two warriors fall before they could get their shields raised. Half of the northmen formed a variation on the shield wall, keeping their shields high to form a curtain of wood and metal above their heads as the other half continued to row. Sigrund, Branna and the other flying aligned took the sky to harry the archers to cover the retreat. Dismas started to fly off as well, but Wulfric called him back. For all of the Chatot's newfound power and the scrappiness that came with it, he was still in a different class entirely from the northern pokemon that had been bred and trained their whole lives to fight.
When that assault failed, the Kalosians tried again further downriver. A hastily erected blockade stopped the longships, and despite Gunnar and Gunnhild's best efforts the Sharpedo had been unable to break it down. While Kalosian soldiers on the riverbank tried to pick them off, Dagmar dropped into the water and swam beneath the river to where the blockade stood. He climbed atop the wooden structure and began to batter it with his heavy fists while Sigrund drew the archers' fire. When the barricade collapsed, the Kalosians moved to the second part of their plan, turning a winch to raise a chain across the river and barring the longships from passing through. Without waiting for any orders from Ivarr, Dagmar seized the chain and pulled, wrenching the anchor from the ground and dragging it into the river. The Beartic roared as he swung the broken chain above his head, and the Kalosian archers hastily retreated.
Ivarr jumped up onto the prow of his longship and cheered as Dagmar calmed down and swam back to the boat. The warrior shouted jeers to the fleeing Kalosians as the longships continued on their way.
The northmen now slept in short shifts to ensure that there were always enough hands pulling the oars. When Halvard and Wulfric finished their shift in the small hours of the night, they hunkered down in the sides of the longship. The jarl had been pensive ever since watching Dagmar break the chain, and when Wulfric asked him what he was thinking, Halvard took a moment before responding. "What the Kalosians tried to do to us here is what Ingmar built at the end of his fjord, yes?"
"More or less, I suppose, but—"
"But you don't think we can get through his chain the same way?"
Wulfric nodded. "King Ingmar's chain will be much stronger than this one, and far better anchored. Dagmar may be strong, but I doubt he's strong enough to bring down an entire stone tower on his own."
Halvard sighed. "Of course it can never be that simple."
"Not to be presumptuous, but perhaps we ought to figure out how to get out of this before we start planning the next creative way to get ourselves killed?"
After breaking through the slapdash blockade, the Kalosians had given the northmen a few days of peace. Wulfric had begun to suspect that the Kalosians had simply decided it was not worth the time or effort to continue pursuing them and had cut their losses. Though the northmen were still making haste towards the sea, their flight had lost some of the desperation they had following their escape from Camphorae. However, as they skirted past Geosenge Village and came into sight of the open sea, the northerners saw why the Kalosians had left them alone.
Drifting in the ocean was a flotilla of Kalosian naval barges, hemming in the northern longships as they exited the river delta. The northerners instinctively took up their weapons and braced for battle, but Wulfric commanded them to wait. He pointed out over the water to where soldiers and their pokemon massed on the decks of the barges. "They outnumber us at least five to one. There's no way we can get out of this if we attack them directly. But we don't need to. They need to hunt down every last one of us, but we just need to escape. Look at those barges. Ulfi, do they look like they can keep pace with our ships?"
The boat builder shook his head. "Probably can't sail worth a damn either."
"Exactly. Kalosian ships are good for moving lots of things from one place to the other. They don't necessarily do it fast, and they don't have to be very nimble to do it. But you northerners live on the sea. You know boats better than anyone. Sure, the Kalosians will kill us if they catch us. But they have to catch us first."
"But they have more ships that we do," Ivarr said. "What's to stop them from just tightening the net? Then we wouldn't be able to get clear."
"Right. We'll need to disrupt them, create some kind of distraction." Wulfric pointed at two boats to the northwest. "Aesgir, I need you to have Gunnar and Gunnhild attack the hulls of those barges there. Torvald and Ivarr, we need Branna and Dagmar to attack the barge directly west of us. We'll make them think we're trying to get out to sea." He turned to Ragnhildr. "I need you to go up with Sigrund to attack the barges from the air. She's been our best asset in disrupting the Kalosians so far, and she's strong enough to be strong enough to handle any flying aligned the Kalosians use to stop you. Fly in a wide arc, starting in the west and moving north. Once you reach that barge there," Wulfric said, pointing at the one directly north of them, "hit it with everything you have. That's the one we need to get rid of to break through." Ragnhildr nodded, and Wulfric continued. "The rest of us need to row with everything we have. We'll go directly north. The waters there are littered with boulders that will make navigation difficult for their larger boats. The longships should be able to pass through.
Once we're sure that they aren't pursuing us any longer, tack west and out into the open ocean. From there, sail back northeast to Rovngalad. If your longship gets separated from the others, don't wait or try to find your way back. Just sail home. Any objections?"
When no one spoke up, Halvard ordered his warriors into position. Gunnar and Gunnhild shot off through the shallows to harry their targets while Dagmar surged off through the lapping waves to the west. Branna circled over the Beartic's head and let him strike the hull first before diving at the rigging, her feathers cloaked in flames. The soldiers on the deck quickly turned their attention from Dagmar to the spreading fire, though with each fire they put out, Branna's next dive would set several more.
The barge the Sharpedo had been sent to attack lurched dangerously to one side as one of the water aligned managed to breach the hull. Aesgir cheered as the barge began to tip, pitching the soldiers into the sea. Many were weighted down by heavy armor and sank like stones, while those who could swim hurried to neighboring barges. While most of the latter made it, others fell victim to Gunnar and Gunnhild's gnashing jaws.
The Kalosian ships began to move in on the northmen's boats, just as Ivarr had predicted. But just before they hemmed in the northerners, Sigrund dropped out of the sky and unleashed a deafening roar. The sound rattled the teeth in Wulfric's skull, and he doubted that the soldiers on the Kalosian barges fared much better. Sigrund directed her blast in an arc around the formation, the wall of sound splintering timbers and making the ears of several soldiers bleed. When she brought her wrath to bear on the northernmost ship, she unleashed her full power, using the sound of her roar to breach the hull and split the mast.
"Now!" Wulfric screamed, and the northmen began to row frantically. A few of the Kalosians on the sinking barge tried to stop their ships with flaming arrows, but Halvard had dispatched several of the women and young men to stand ready with shields to catch them. The longships between the damaged barges and headed towards the rocky shoals to the north. The rowers on the Kalosian barges worked to pursue them, and Wulfric directed the longships to scatter.
Torvald nodded to his brother from the deck of his own ship before tacking west, slipping out of sight behind a rocky spar. Halvard directed his crew north into the shoals. Several Kalosian boats attempted to follow them, but their wider decks made it nearly impossible for them to navigate the treacherous waters. The northerners worked their oars as Halvard called the cadence, and soon they had weaved their way through the rocks and out into the open ocean. Using the sun as their guide, the longship tacked westward into deeper waters for several hours before turning back north for home.
The journey back was largely uneventful, and in time they rendezvoused with the other four longships. Two of them had been badly scratched in the shoals, but the damage was not enough to compromise the hull. As they made their way back to Rovngalad, they kept the Kalosian coastline in view, but only barely. A watcher on the shore would not have been able to see them, and they took care to avoid well-known fishing lanes.
Finally, after days of travel, the northmen passed the first of the fjords that marked the entrance to the northlands. Weary but eager to return home, the warriors found the strength to reach Rovngalad after only two more days. However, as they approached the mouth of the fjord, Ulfi scowled. "Something doesn't seem right."
Trails of smoke drifted up over the hills around the village, though they were darker and more acrid than the normal cooking fires could account for. No Mareep roamed the hills, though they should have been out to pasture. The longships passed through the mouth of the fjord, and the northerners were left in mute shock as they sailed towards what was left of the village.
Rovngalad was in ruins, burned to the ground.