Blasphemy [Finan the Agile]

CHAPTER xxiv. 'Though There be Fury on The Waves, Beneath Them There is None'

ﾟ❁ུ۪ °ₒ 𓂂 ˚ 𓂂 ₒ ° ₒ 𓂂 ˚˖⋆

CHAPTER xxiv. 'Though There be Fury on The Waves, Beneath Them There is None'

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The air smelt sickly-sweet of rotting meat and sea salt, Freydis sat with her back pressed against the mast as Sihtric paced, Finan moaned, and thirty or-so men pulled. Uhtred studied a map on the floor of the ship, and Osferth, similarly, studied the sky as he mumbled a prayer to his god. For two days they have seen nothing but water, not once witnessing any signs of land nearby; not even a lone seagull, whereupon those sky-rats could travel from Northumbria to Irland if they very well wished to. Nevertheless, a sail that should have taken around a day has progressed into a near three-day sail. The most frightening aspect of this, however, was the fact that they still had no idea where they were, or how long it would take to actually arrive in Bebbanburg.

The sky's were overcast, but that should not have been a problem for Sihtric's sun-stone. The waters were rambunctious, but they were in ships the size of Cocchams market square — it would take only a wave the size of an overwatch tower to submerge one of Uhtred's vessels. Furthermore, they had an ensemble of Gods watching over them; Osferth and Finan's Christian God, Uhtred and Sihtric's Danish Gods, and Freydis' Celtic Gods. So, Freydis was left to indignantly wonder where in Dogda's name they had gone so wrong to become nearly three-days off course? Freydis glanced over toward her fellow Irishman, wondering if he felt as unnerved as she did. By the way his face pollared with every turbulent wave, she could only determine he felt even worse than she did, whereas she was merely queasy due to the lack of food. The Celtic-rogue knew of Finan's past as a slave, how he would spent months-straight chained to a ship whilst his captors periodically rested on land. For three years of his life he spent every day wondering if he'd see land again, or if he was finally to succumb to the turbulent God-forsaken seas and cruel, whip-adjacent slave-masters. This sail and its unsurity must have been torture for the healing Irishman, and despite the indifference between the two following Freydis' stubbornness, and Finan's overbearing protectiveness, she couldn't help but pity him. Whereas one side of her wanted to ignore him, and focus on the condition of her own men, the other sought to comfort him like how her mother would do to her when she caught unrelenting fevers as a child back in Irland.

Uhtred, despite the bump in their mission, was relatively unfettered following their loss of course. Instead, he studied a monk-drawn map on the hull of his ship and drew a line from Coccham's ports, to where he suspected they were now. "Face the sails southeast, Sihtric." Ordered the Dane-Slayer, he proceeded to stand up and gather the attention of everyone else on the ship. "Whoever sees land first will receive a chest of jewels the weight of their whorish step-mothers!"

Freydis rolled her eyes as suddenly every man on the ship was reprised with newfound strength, and now hung over the sides of the boat as if their proximity to the water would heighten their chances of being the sole-discoverers of new land. Freydis boredly kicked her foot out, and knocked it against Osferths ankle. The monk jumped, shifting from his praying-stance and planting his palm on the hilt of his saex. Freydis' eyebrows lifted, amused by his reaction. "Scared, monk?"