A Viking's Rage

Chapter 4

All the men stood around the front of the ship, drinking and rehashing their tales from the raid.

"Too beautiful women and bountiful riches, þakka ðinn!" Thrain shouted, with his horn full of mead in the air.

"þakka ðinn!" The rest of the crew called after him. Ragda sat off to the side, watching his brother. "You're oddly quiet tonight bróðir, what troubles you?" He asked.

"You trouble me, brother," Dagr replied. "Erfiðr." He cursed under his breath.

Ragda and Dagr were half-brothers. Different father's, same whore of a mother. Dagr had come from one of the many affairs their mother had, had. Ragda had come from her marriage to the Jarl Lowzow. Though Dagr was older, Ragda was the heir. Ragda had little desire to take up his father's chair in the Great Hall. He much preferred Viking to ruling.

Dagr, however, wished for nothing more than power and was annoyed by his younger brother's lack of wanting. He was a bastard, with no titles nor wealth. He had made a name for himself by raiding and fighting alone. "You want her." His eyes were dark with anger.

"Who?" Ragda asked, knowing full well that Dagr always had a way of twisting things in his mind, he was suspicious of everyone, even his own brother.

"Don't play stupid, you know who," Dagr replied, with a roll of his eyes.

"The Christian?" Ragda laughed. "She is lovely."

"I saw her first," Dagr said.

"What are we eight?" Said Ragda, shifting his stance to face his brother full on.

With the anger in Dagr's expression, all the men quieted their drinking and chattering. It would not have been the first time the brothers had come to blows, they were evenly matched, but where Ragda was honorable, Dagr was ruthless.

"I want her." He leaned towards Ragda as he spoke.

"You become vexed to easily bróðir! Your anger will be your downfall one day. But since you seem so concerned over the girl, she's yours." Ragda chuckled, patting his brother on the shoulder as he spoke. "Hear that, men? The skinny Christian belongs to Dagr!" He boomed.

Dagr's un-clenched his fists, as he smirked at his brother. All the men joined in the laughter and soon Dagr began to relax. He relieved himself from their company to return to the rear of the ship to check on the captives. The sky was dark and the sea rough; the night would not be a calm one. His eyes moved across the shadowy deck until they fell upon the sleeping girl. He still wondered who the dead boy had been that she wept for.

"Ragda doesn't get this one." He spoke to himself, while staring at the girl, curled up on the cold wooden deck. A fiendish smile creeping a crossed his lips, a smile only for the darkness.