Author's note : I didn't write this chapter from Bjorn's point of view because his strategy must remain secret. Instead, put yourself in Kjotve's place and consider what you would do.
Next chapter is Bjorn's POV.
-x-X-x-
"You are late, King Kjotve." Sulke's voice cut through the low murmur of conversation. "Now clear my misunderstanding, you are the closest to this place, yet you are one of the last to arrive. How does that work?"
There was an edge in his voice. Challenge and testing. Sulke was always testing and pushing to see who would push back and who would yield. It was tedious, but you couldn't ignore it. Ignore a challenge from Sulke and everyone would remember.
Kjotve took his time settling into the space near the others. He brushed dust from his cloak—fine wool, dyed dark blue, expensive.
"You came first?" He kept his voice almost pleasant. "Then you must have been very eager. Or very afraid of missing something important."
Sulke's jaw tightened.
"Aye, first to arrive," Sulke said, and now there was pride cutting through the challenge. "First to take the best ground for my men. First to secure the best anchorage. That's what kings do, Kjotve. They act while merchants count their silver and worry about the cost."
The insult was delivered with a smile. Kjotve let it pass. He'd been called worse than merchant, and usually by men who came begging for silver within the year. Let Sulke have his moment. Words were cheap. Ships and supplies cost silver, and Kjotve had more of that than Sulke would see in three lifetimes.
"I hope you continue doing exactly that," Kjotve said, matching Sulke's smile with one of his own. "Being first, I mean. First to arrive, first to fight and first to lead your men into Bjorn's spears. Because Silver Hair has readied his forces near Kaupang already—a fleet of thirty ships.
The long serpents were legendary now, they were fast, deadly, able to carry triple the men of a normal longship. They were also ruinously expensive to build. The fact that Bjorn had two of them said everything about how serious he was, how much wealth he'd accumulated from his raids and trade.
Kjotve felt a flicker of something that might have been admiration, might have been envy. Say what you wanted about Silver Hair, but he knew how to build ships.
"I'll fight at the front," Sulke said, and his smile shifted, showing teeth like a wolf showing its readiness to bite. "If you fight beside me. Can you do that, merchant king? Can you stand in the shield wall with warriors, or will you be in the back counting your losses?"
They stared at each other and the moment stretched. This was the dance—Sulke pushing, Kjotve pushing back, both of them testing where the boundaries were. Neither wanting to yield but neither wanting to break the fragile coalition before it even sailed.
Kjotve was about to answer when a voice broke the tension.
"Thirty ships? That's all?" One of the jarls from Sogn—Kjotve couldn't remember his name—leaned forward, eager. "We have more than sixty here already. And more are still coming. The Danes are coming, aren't they? And King Ignjald of the Geats is joining as well. Isn't that so, Jarl Gunnar?"
All eyes turned to Gunnar.
"I know nothing of the Geats," Gunnar said slowly. "And I'm not certain why we should trust them to fight beside us even if they come. They have their own interests, their own ambitions. But the Danes..." He paused, and Kjotve could almost see him weighing how much to reveal, how much to hold back. "The Danes will honor the alliance. Princess Elisif is married to the son of the late King Horik. That binds them to us. They'll send ships and men."
Kjotve wanted to laugh. Wanted to, but didn't. Laughter would give too much away.
The marriage. Yes. King Eirik's great gambit—marrying his daughter to Danish royalty, trying to extend his influence across the sea. Bold, ambitious and stupid.
Because the Danes weren't fools. They knew what the marriage meant. They knew that with King Eirik trapped in his sickbed, neither dead nor alive, Hordaland was vulnerable. Weak. And if the coalition failed, if Bjorn crushed them, the Danes would have a claim. A foothold. Through Elisif, they could argue rights to Eirik's lands.
And even if the coalition won, the Danes would still have leverage. Either way, they benefited. So why would they rush to help? Why spend Danish blood and silver when they could simply wait and pick over the aftermath?
No. The Danes wouldn't come.
Kjotve kept these thoughts to himself. Let them believe what they wanted to believe. Let them count on reinforcements that would never arrive. It would make them desperate, and desperate men sometimes fought harder.
Sometimes.
"I say we don't wait." King Sulke's voice again, loud and aggressive as always. "We have double his numbers right now. Why wait for Danes who might not come, or Geats we can't trust? Silver Hair may be strong, but he's one man with half our numbers. Let's force him to fight us at sea. Let's sail to Kaupang and crush him before he can prepare further. The gods favor the bold, don't they? Or have you all forgotten that?"
Murmurs rippled through the gathering. Some nodding. Some uncertain.
"I agree," said the jarl from Sogn, eager to align himself with Sulke's aggression. "That's what King Harald Golden-Beard wants as well. Force Bjorn into one large battle at sea. They say Silver Hair always fights at the head of his warband. If that's true, we can kill him early. Cut the head from the serpent. Without Bjorn, what do they have? Jarls who barely know each other? The war would be over before it properly began."
Kjotve studied the faces around the circle. Some eager. Some calculating. None of them as confident as their words suggested.
King Harald Golden-Beard. Another old king with old grievances. He claimed blood relation to Halfdan the Black, and with Bjorn ruling the lands that had once belonged to Halfdan's line, Golden-Beard saw opportunity and lands that should belong to him by right of blood.
But Golden-Beard was far away, very old, with no heir to carry on his name.
"We should wait for the Danes." Jarl Gunnar's voice was patient. "That's my opinion. That's what would be wise."
Kjotve looked at him more carefully.
Gunnar was leading the warriors of King Eirik and coordinating with the other jarls who'd come from Hordaland. That meant Eirik's wife—the regent—trusted him with her husband's warriors and her husband's reputation, with everything that mattered in a kingdom where the king couldn't rule.
But should they trust him?
The thought turned over in Kjotve's mind.
Gunnar wasn't a king. So he didn't have a kingdom to lose. If this coalition failed and Bjorn crushed them utterly, what would happen to Jarl Gunnar? Would he die? Probably not. Jarls could change sides and survive in ways that kings couldn't.
King Sulke would die if they lost. So would Kjotve himself. So would Golden-Beard's reputation and whatever jarls he'd sent to fight in his name. Kings who went to war and lost didn't get second chances. They got graves. Or worse—they got to live and watch as their lands were parceled out to others, their halls burned, their names forgotten.
But jarls? Jarls were flexible.
And if Gunnar didn't have as much to lose, how much could they really trust him to fight with everything he had? How much could they trust him not to negotiate a separate peace if things went badly?
Kjotve realized the others were looking at him and waiting.
"King Kjotve?" Sulke's voice again, edged with impatience. "What say you? Do we attack, or do we sit here growing old while we wait for Danes who might never come?"
Kjotve took his time answering.
The truth was simple enough. His jarls were playing games. He'd been late not because he'd wanted to make an entrance, but because his own men had been slow to gather. Taking their time and stalling.
Some of them hadn't even brought all their elite warriors, they had left their best men at home, protecting their own halls while sending their second-best to this coalition.
The bastards.
He wondered if the other kings had the same problem. Probably. Everyone keeping something in reserve in case this went badly.
In case they needed to negotiate with Bjorn instead of fighting him.
"If we don't attack, then what?" Kjotve said finally. He made his voice reasonable. The voice of a merchant discussing a deal. "Should we send terms to negotiate with him? Apologize for the insults and beg for peace? Should we attack him divided, each king sailing separately? All of these are worse than attacking together. So yes. Let's attack him. Let's sail to Kaupang and force the battle before any more time passes."
He watched each alternative register on their faces. The grunts of annoyance. The dismissive gestures. Good. Sometimes you united men not by giving them something to fight for, but by showing them all the alternatives were worse.
"Since that's decided," Sulke said, and now there was satisfaction in his voice, the pleasure of getting what he wanted, "let's discuss who will lead this great warband into battle. I'll speak plainly, I should lead. I'll command from the front, naturally. But you'll need to give me absolute authority over all your warriors. Full command. No questions and no damn hesitation. That's the only way this works."
Silence followed and Kjotve felt his jaw tighten and the anger rise in his chest. Around him, he could see the same reaction on every face. Even the jarls who'd been nodding along to Sulke's earlier words had gone still.
"That's not going to happen." Three voices spoke at once—Kjotve's, King Sulke's jarls, and someone from Golden-Beard's contingent. All at the same time, like they'd rehearsed it.
No one would give their housecarls' command to another king. It was unthinkable. Impossible.
Kjotve's warriors were sworn to him alone. Paid from his wealth, they were bound by oaths, by gifts, by honor. They fought for him because he'd earned their loyalty, because he fed their families and remembered their names and shared his fortune with them.
Hand them over to Sulke? Let another man command warriors who'd sworn oaths to Kjotve?
What if Sulke ordered them to do something stupid? Something that would weaken Kjotve specifically? Should his men obey or protect their true king's interests? And that hesitation—that moment of doubt—would get them and everyone killed.
On the sea, hesitation meant death. Everyone knew that.
And even if they survived, even if Sulke proved to be a brilliant commander and led them to victory, who would get the glory? Sulke. Only Sulke. His name in the songs. His deeds praised in every hall. And he would remind them, every day for the rest of their lives, that he was the one who led them to victory. That they owed him everything.
It would be submission. Everyone would see it that way. Every jarl watching would think Kjotve was weak.
No. Impossible.
"Let's divide the fleet into four parts," said the jarl from Sogn, speaking quickly into the tense silence. "Each part led by one king and his jarls. Each king commands his own men. We coordinate, but each maintains his own authority."
The tension eased slightly. This was acceptable. This preserved everyone's honor, everyone's authority.
But Kjotve could see the problem immediately.
They couldn't trust each other. Each king would be fighting his own battle. Watching his own flanks. Protecting his own men first and worrying about the others second, if at all.
And you couldn't even trust your own jarls completely.
They were forced into this arrangement not by choice but by necessity. There was no room for negotiation with Bjorn. They'd made sure of that themselves when they'd sent their public insults. When they'd humiliated him in front of everyone who mattered.
Looking back now, Kjotve could see what they'd done. They'd committed themselves fully to this fight.
They had to lead. And they had to win.
There was no other choice left.
Kjotve looked around the circle of kings and jarls. Saw the same realization on some faces. The understanding that they'd trapped themselves. That pride and fear and ambition had locked them into a course they couldn't change.
Sulke was still smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes anymore.
Jarl Gunnar stood silent, watching everything, calculating something Kjotve couldn't quite read.
The others shifted, uncomfortable, unwilling to acknowledge what they all knew.
They had double Bjorn's numbers. Maybe more if the stragglers arrived.
It should be enough.
Should be.
Kjotve looked out toward the water, toward where the ships lay beached and waiting. Toward Kaupang and whatever was coming.
"Then we're agreed," he said finally. "Four divisions. Four leaders. We sail at dawn."
Around the circle, heads slowly and reluctantly nodded. But they nodded.
The meeting was over.
Kjotve walked back through the camp as evening settled over Lindisness. Fires were being lit. Men were eating, talking, sharpening weapons that were already sharp.
They had planned to sail at dawn if the Danes never came, but when the sun began its slow descent, casting the sky in shades of dying amber, scouts positioned on the high ground called down.
Two ships on the horizon. Banners unmarked.
The camp stirred, Warriors reaching for weapons. The leaders gathered at the water's edge as the unknown vessels cut through the orange-lit waves.
When the ships finally grounded on the beach, fewer than fifty men stepped onto the sand. Kjotve studied them with a merchant's eye for detail.
They wore no helmets. Only battered shields and simple axes and spears. Not a single sword among them.
"You look like wanderers," King Sulke announced, his voice carrying across the beach. "Who are you?"
The man who stepped forward wore no ring on his arm, no silver at his throat. "We were sent by our Lord King Ari to honor the alliance with King Eirik."
Jarl Gunnar went very still. "Two ships and fifty men. We were promised far more than this. Does your king understand the meaning of alliance?"
"The King regrets he cannot spare more. There are... troubles at home. Danish lands require—"
"Troubles." The word came from Gud Hordr, one of the brothers from Telemark. He laughed. "The boy-king sends us farmers and calls it troubles at home. What do you expect, Danes were never famous for their honor."
His brother Groad spat on the ground near the Danes' feet. The Danish warriors looked at the spittle, then at each other, and said nothing.
Jarl Gunnar's face had gone pale. Whether from rage or shame, Kjotve couldn't tell.
"At least now we know the truth," said the jarl from Sogn. "The marriage bought you nothing. The Danes will watch us bleed and then claim the remains."
"Dawn, then," Sulke said, ending the muttering. "We sail at first light. Prepare your ships."
Dawn came gray and reluctant, as if the sun itself was hesitant to witness what was coming. Kjotve had barely slept.
They pushed the ships into the water as the light strengthened. Oars bit into the sea in rhythm. More than a thousand men moving as one, more than sixty ships like a great beast swimming toward its prey.
Except Kjotve couldn't shake the feeling that they were the prey.
The morning stretched on. The sun climbed behind thick clouds, turning the world gray and flat. By midday they reached the mouth of the Kaupang Fjord—that long throat of water leading to Bjorn's stronghold.
Kjotve stood at his ship's prow, scanning ahead. There—shadows on the water. Bjorn's fleet, positioned deep in the fjord, in open water.
"Why there?" Kjotve muttered.
One of his huskarls leaned closer. "My lord?"
"Look where they've positioned themselves. Deep in the fjord, in open water. They've given up the advantage of the narrow mouth. Why would Silver Hair do that?"
His huskarl frowned, studying the distant ships. "Maybe he's young and made a mistake."
"Not this kind of mistakes," Kjotve said quietly.
The fleet compressed as they entered the fjord, ships drawing closer as the waters narrowed. King Sulke's vessels led the center, flanked by the brothers from Telemark on one side. The Jarl from Sogn held the left with his ships and other Jarls from Sogn.
Jarl Gunnar's ships—King Eirik's warriors—held a position slightly behind the front line but ahead of the true rear.
Kjotve's own ships brought up the rear on the right flank. He'd chosen the position, because he'd seen too many deals go bad to rush into one that smelled wrong.
And this smelled wrong.
The water looked wrong first. Kjotve noticed it as they pushed deeper into the fjord. Dark patches floating on the surface, oily and thick. Moving slowly against the current in ways water shouldn't move.
"My lord," his huskarl said softly. "What is that?"
Other men had noticed too. The oars were slowing across the fleet as warriors leaned over the rails, studying the strange substance.
"Pitch, maybe?" someone called from a nearby ship. "Spilled goods?"
"Could be tar," another voice suggested. "Traders use it to seal hulls."
But it was distributed too evenly and deliberately.
"It's a trap," Kjotve said.
"What?" his huskarl turned to him.
"This is deliberate. Look at the pattern. Those aren't random spills, that's been placed."
Sulke's voice boomed across the water from ahead. "It's just tar, Kjotve! What, are you afraid of merchant goods now?"
Laughter rippled through some of the nearby ships. Not all, for some men were still staring at the dark patches with the same unease Kjotve felt.
"There are barrels floating out there," Groad Hryg called out, pointing. "See? Broken barrels. Probably a shipment that went down. Nothing more sinister than bad seamanship."
"There's no wreckage," Kjotve shouted back. "No ship. Just barrels and oil. Does that seem natural to you?"
"Natural?" Sulke laughed. "What's natural is you finding excuses to hang back. This is exactly what Silver Hair wants, to make us cautious, to divide us with fear. Well, I'm not afraid. Who's with me?"
A roar went up from Sulke's ships. Pride and aggression, the old Viking way—meet fear with defiance, meet doubt with action.
"The gods favor the bold!" Sulke raised his axe high. "Forward! Let's show this boy what real warriors look like!"
His ships surged ahead, oars biting hard. The brothers from Telemark followed without hesitation. Then the vessels from Sogn. The fleet was moving, and Kjotve and other cautious Jarls were left behind.
He felt eyes on him. His own men, watching their king, waiting to see if he was truly as craven as Sulke suggested.
"My lord?" his huskarl asked quietly. "Your orders?"
Kjotve's jaw clenched. Maybe he was wrong and it was just spilled goods. Maybe his work as a merchant had made him see threats where none existed.
But he thought of Bjorn Silver Hair, eighteen years old, who'd rose from nothing. Who'd never lost a fight.
Would that man leave barrels of tar floating randomly in the water?
"Slow advance," Kjotve ordered. "Stay back from the main formation. Try to avoid those dark patches as much as possible."
"That'll make us look—"
"I know how it'll look," Kjotve interrupted. "Do it anyway."
His ships began to move, but cautiously, staying behind the main body of the fleet. More than half the coalition vessels had already entered the fjord proper now, spreading out as the water opened beyond the narrow entrance. The dark patches were everywhere. Unavoidable. Ships passed through them, oars churning the oily substance, spreading it in their wakes.
Kjotve watched Bjorn's distant fleet. Still motionless and watching and waiting.
Then he saw movement on the two largest ships—the long serpents. Men gathering at the rails. Torches being lit in broad daylight.
Arrows being nocked.
"No," Kjotve breathed.
The arrows were being held to the flames. One after another and dozens of them.
"Back water!" Kjotve roared. "All ships, back water now! Reverse course!"
His voice carried across the water, filled with urgency.
And heads turned, their faces showing confusion, contempt, anger.
"Coward!" someone shouted—Kjotve couldn't see who.
From ahead, Sulke's voice: "By Odin's eye, Kjotve, if you turn back now—"
"Look at their ships!" Kjotve pointed frantically toward Bjorn's fleet. "Look at what they're doing."
"I see it. But they can't hit us. We are not in the range."
But it was too late for the sky brightened.
For one heartbeat, it looked like the sun had finally broken through the clouds—points of gold and orange arcing through the gray air, trailing smoke and sparks.
Fire arrows. A flock of burning birds, rising and rising, then beginning their descent.
Not toward the coalition ships but toward the water itself.
"What are they—" someone started.
The first arrows hit the dark patches with soft hissing sounds.
And the sea caught fire.
It started just small flames dancing where the arrows landed, little fires that couldn't possibly survive on water.
Then the fire spread.
It raced across the oily patches like a living thing, leaping from one dark area to the next with impossible speed. Yellow flames shot up, tinged with green at the edges. The color was wrong. Everything about this was wrong.
For one frozen moment, the entire fleet went silent. A thousand warriors staring at something that couldn't be real.
Fire. On the sea.
"By the gods...," his huskarl whispered beside Kjotve.
The silence finally shattered.
"TURN!" someone screamed from the front ranks. "Turn the ships around!"
"We're boxed in—I can't—"
"Back water! Everyone back water!"
"My oars are tangled—get your damned ship away from mine!"
Panic spread faster than the flames. Ships tried to turn in spaces too narrow for turning. Oars cracked against oars from neighboring vessels. Wood splintered. Men cursed and shouted and began to scream as the flames spread wider and faster and hungrier.
A wave rolled through, and small fires leaped from the burning water onto the deck of the nearest ship. Warriors scrambled for buckets, for water, for anything.
"Put it out!"
"I'm trying—it won't go out!"
"The water's making it worse!"
"How can water make fire worse?"
But it was. The flames seemed to feed on the water, spreading wherever the oily substance touched. Men who jumped into the sea to escape burning decks surfaced screaming, their clothes ignited, the fire clinging to them like something alive.
"Get them out! Someone help them!"
But the ships were too tightly packed and the flames too close. The men in the water thrashed and screamed until finally, mercifully, they stopped moving and sank beneath the surface.
"Abandon ship! Everyone abandon—"
"No! Stay on the ships! The water's worse!"
"We're trapped! We're all going to die!"
"HOLD YOUR POSITIONS!"
The voice broke through the chaos. King Sulke, standing at the prow of his ship, which somehow sat in a clear patch of water between two advancing walls of flame.
"You spineless dogs!" Sulke roared. "Are you Vikings or are you children? It's just fire! We've faced worse!"
"The sea doesn't burn!" someone shouted back, voice cracking with panic.
"Well, it's burning now, so get on with it!" Sulke bellowed. "Listen to me—all of you! The fire follows the oil. Look at the water! There are clear patches. Navigate to them!"
Kjotve, from his position at the rear, watched with grudging admiration as Sulke took command. Not of the whole fleet—that was impossible now—but of the ships near him, the men who could hear his voice.
"Soaked shields!" Sulke commanded. "Wet your shields and hold them up between the flames and your ships! You there—yes, you—organize bucket lines! Keep everything wet that isn't already burning!"
Some of the panic began to ebb near Sulke's ship. Men started moving with purpose instead of terror.
"Check the wind!" Sulke continued. "The wind pushes the flames! Row against it! Make the fire chase you instead of cutting off your escape!"
"It's too fast!" The Jarl from Sogn shouted from his ship on the left. "The wind's pushing it faster than we can row!"
"Then row faster, you lazy bastard!" Sulke shot back. "Or do you want to burn here? Because I don't!"
Another volley of fire arrows rose from Bjorn's ships. Same as the first but just as deadly. They arced through the smoke-filled air and fell into patches of oil that hadn't yet ignited.
New fires bloomed across the water.
"He's herding us," Jarl Gunnar's voice, loud but controlled, cutting through the chaos. "He's using the fire to control where we can go. He's compressing our formation."
Kjotve nodded, though Gunnar couldn't see him. That was exactly right. It seems Bjorn wasn't trying to burn every ship, that would be impossible, Kjotve realised.
He was using the fire as a shepherd uses dogs, driving the fleet into tighter and tighter groups, into smaller and smaller patches of clear water.
Making them easy targets.
"Gut Hordr!" Sulke's voice again. "Take your brother's ships and break left! There's a clear channel opening up on the left flank! Go now while you can!"
"What about you?" Gud Hordr called back.
"I'll manage! Move!"
The brothers from Telemark didn't hesitate. Their ships broke formation, oars biting hard, pushing for the gap Sulke had spotted. Other ships tried to follow, creating a stampede that threatened to make things worse.
"No! Not everyone!" Sulke roared. "You'll block the channel! Half of you stay with me! We'll find another way out!"
But no one was listening anymore. The panic had returned, worse than before. Ships were breaking formation everywhere now, each crew fighting for survival, forgetting about coordination, about unity, about everything except staying alive.
A ship near the front—one of the Jarl leading the ships of King Golden beard—took a direct hit from a flaming arrow. The fire caught in the rigging and raced up toward the sail.
"Cut it down!" the captain screamed. "Cut the sail!"
Men hacked at the ropes with axes and swords. The burning sail came down in a shower of sparks and flame, taking three men with it into the water. They surfaced burning, their screams cutting through all the other noise.
One of them managed to grab onto an oar from a passing ship. Warriors leaned over to pull him up, but the fire had spread to his clothes, his hair, his skin. He shrieked as they hauled him aboard, thrashing, spreading the fire to anyone who touched him.
"Hold him down!"
"Get water!"
"It's not working—the water's not working!"
Finally someone ended it with a mercy blow from an axe. The silence that followed that scream was worse than the sound itself.
"Stay together!" Sulke commanded, his voice starting to show strain now but still strong. "Don't scatter! The moment we break apart completely, we're finished! Watch your neighboring ships! Coordinate your movements!"
"How?" someone shouted back. "How are we supposed to coordinate in this?"
"By being Vikings instead of cowards!" Sulke shot back. "This is just fire! Fire and oil and one clever boy who thinks he's smarter than all of us! Are you going to prove him right? Are you going to let him kill you?"
"No!" A few voices answered, then more.
"I can't hear you!"
"NO!" The response was louder now, anger replacing some of the fear.
"Then fight! Find the clear water! Watch out for your brothers!"
Kjotve watched from the rear, his own ships still in relatively clear water, still safe for the moment. His hands gripped the rail so hard his knuckles had gone white.
"My lord," his huskarl said quietly. "Should we retreat? We could still get out. The flames haven't reached us. The others as well."
Kjotve didn't answer immediately. He watched Sulke's distant figure, still commanding, still fighting. Watched the men trying to follow those orders, trying to believe they could survive this impossible trap.
Part of him—the merchant and the calculating part—screamed to run and to save his ships, his men. They hadn't entered the trap completely. So they could still escape.
But another part, the part that had to live with other kings and jarls after this, the part that understood reputation and honor and all the intangible things that mattered in their world...
"We hold," Kjotve said finally. "We stay here at the edge. If anyone breaks free, we'll be here to support them. But we don't go further in."
"And if they call us cowards?"
"We are not cowards. We are... right." Kjotve gestured at the chaos ahead.
From ahead, through the smoke and flames, another sound cut through the chaos. Not screaming this time, but laughter.
Harsh, defiant laughter from King Sulke's ship.
"Do you hear that, Silver Hair?" Sulke bellowed toward Bjorn's distant fleet. "That's the sound of men who aren't beaten yet! You think one trick is enough to finish us? Come closer and find out!"
It was bravado. Mad, reckless bravado. But it worked. Around Sulke's ship, warriors straightened and gripped their weapons tighter. The panic receded another degree.
'He's exactly what they need right now. Someone too stubborn to accept that we've already lost.' Kjotve thought.
Kjotve watched the flames spreading, the fleet compressing into smaller and smaller pockets of clear water and Bjorn's ships sitting in the distance, untouched, certainly waiting for the fire to finish its work so they could move in for the kill.
But Sulke kept fighting anyway. Ships were forming defensive clusters now around his leadership, working together to create barriers of water between themselves and the flames, coordinating their movements instead of panicking individually.
It wasn't enough to win. But it might be enough for some of them to survive.
The flames kept spreading, the sky filled with smoke and men continued to scream and die.
The sea fire had been a greedy bitch. It burned longer than Kjotve expected, clinging to the water. But all fires ended. This one thinned slowly, broken apart by current and wind, leaving smoke hanging low over the fjord.
The visibility was poor. Shapes and shadows, but no details.
The fire had killed men and ships. And it had sorted them.
In front of Kjotve, deeper inside the fjord, the chaos was calming. Ships that had been locked in combat pulled apart. Beyond that was Sulke's damaged cluster—fewer ships now, scarred but still holding formation. And beyond that, smoke and wreckage. Ships drifting without purpose.
Their momentum was gone. The other Jarls might be dead. He couldn't tell through the smoke.
The fire had burned out, leaving charred wood and men crawling from the water like broken animals. Smoke stung eyes and throats, revealing ships scattered where a fleet had once moved as one. Some drifted half-burned, oars gone, hulls blackened. Others limped away under torn sails.
Sulke's ships retreated slowly to where Kjotve and the reserves waited. A hard truth—they'd been watching while others died.
And Kjtove realized, they had lost third of their fleet.
Men pulled the living from the water and pushed the dead away. Along the shores, survivors crawled onto rocks, coughing smoke and seawater, watching the ships abandon them.
Ahead, Sulke's remaining ships still flew their banners, defiant even in retreat. And beyond them, in clean water untouched by flame, Bjorn's fleet began to move.
Thirty ships. All intact and all fresh. Moving in perfect formation and in complete silence.
That's when Kjotve heard the horns.
Low and deep, carrying across the water. From inside the fjord.
Bjorn and his ships moved toward them now, Dragon-prowed and hungry.
Kjotve's blood went cold.
Then the shoreline came alive.
Men poured from the tree line on both flanks—hundreds of them, moving like wolves closing on wounded prey. Mail glinted in the grey light, leather creaked and steel whispered from sheaths.
They advanced on the exhausted warriors, still catching their breath on the beach.
Kjotve felt dread settle cold in his stomach.
This wasn't a battle anymore. This was a trap, perfectly set and sprung.
Kjotve lifted his eyes to the iron sky, and something like grief moved across his face.
"You Gods are truly cruel," he whispered.