Fighting, Honour and Valhalla || Vikings x The Originals x TVD

Into the Fire

Thorfinn and the rest of his group decided to take a breather after the battle. All four of them had sustained some injuries, but luckily Thorfinn had the presence of mind to bring his healing kit with him and so he treated everyone's wounds and allowed for a few hours of rest for everyone. While they did he and Arwyn scavenged the battlefield, good iron weapons were not common and could only be afforded by the wealthy. Of course, Thorfinn knew the Jarl and Mikael were involved in this attack, the fact Knut was there could attest to that, but even if he wasn't there were very few people in the surrounding lands rich enough to outfit so many men with such good quality weapons.

'I'll take these as a gift for the trouble they caused me,' Thorfinn thought with a smirk as he gathered the weapons. Of course not all of them were outfitted, some had basic clubs and spears. Knut even had some armour not that it helped him; Thorfinn shook his head as he looked down at the cowardly man. Too many aspirations and not nearly enough skill to carry them out. "I'm glad the coward is dead..." Lagertha said as she spat on Knuts corpse. Lagertha would never forget how he tried to force himself on her, in that moment she swore vengeance on him; while she wished it had been her that carried it out she could accept Thorfinn being the one to do it. He had saved her from that fate so he had the right to do it as well.

'Just one more left...' Lagertha thought as an image of Magnus appeared in her mind. He was just as responsible as Knut despite not taking part in the act; he would meet her blade as well.

"He wanted to be a great man that people sung songs of, but failed to realise you cannot grow from within someone's shadow," Thorfinn commented as he started to strip Knut of his armour. Even if he had not been a coward he never would've been great, he clung to his brother like a babe does to its mother's teat. The chainmail he wore was slightly damaged from the fight but it would still be usable with some minor repair. After getting the weapons gathered and placing them in the cart, and then going over and taking the silver that had been used to hire them Thorfinn finally sat down, with Arywn sitting close to him.

"Ragnar will not let this lie," Lagertha said as she sat down as well.

Floki giggled. "Perhaps the battle will begin sooner than we thought."

Thorfinn breathed out a sigh. "That would not be in our best interests," he commented. "The longer we stall the better our position will be, they know that so they will try and tempt us to make the first move."

"Why did they not just attack," Arwyn said shakily in their language.

"Mikael would... but the Jarl is more concerned with his popularity. Ragnar and his companions are loved by the people at the moment, these are the very people he'd raise to try and fight them, they might join Ragnar instead," He explained.

"They need an excuse to act." He continued.

Floki giggled "If he had killed Ragnar's wife I imagine that would've done the trick."

Thorfinn nodded. "Ragnar would've acted if he heard that both of you had been killed."

Thorfinn wiped his face as he sighed, this was getting complicated, they'd need to act but they couldn't do so overtly and give them the right to attack them. "We will talk with Ragnar about this later, I can only hope he will keep a cool head so we can decide how to retaliate," Thorfinn stated.

He then looked to Arwyn. "I need you to go back home," he said.

Arwyn frowned. "Why?" she asked, her voice full of concern, wondering if she had done anything wrong.

"A twelve-hour journey is too long. I need you to go and tell Storri to gather the men and camp somewhere out of sight in the forest by Kattegat," Thorfinn explained.