Cold winds, cold grass, cold arms, cold man.
There is a young man, still early in his 20s, was down in the ground reaping the wheat he had sown two seasons ago with his callous hands and trimmed nails. But he wasn’t happy, he wasn’t satisfied at what he is reaping, for the wheat was brittle and not gold.
The color was pale, it barely stood tall, and the ground where it came from was hard, cold, dry, it was unsuitable. But somehow, someway, the wheat this young man is reaping is there, coming from the waste it blooms. Maybe it’s not enough, maybe it’s not up to the satisfactory quality, but it is there to provide for him and his family.
He carried the wheat and was heading to the granary, accompanied by two young boys at his sides, who was carrying wheats as well.
They are his young brothers, the left one was only a year short of becoming a man and has shown himself to be a promising, strong, hardy man.
While on his right has recently become a man, a pleasant man, with tongue as sweet as honey and as sharp as a viper’s fang. He was no warrior, not something like his younger brother and his older brother would be, but he was still a fighter as tradition and the miserable waste they lives in demands it.
On the way he met his father, an old man, past his prime, past pretty much everything as he settles in with the farm he bought from his time as a soldier of fortune.
After that they put the wheats in the granary, the young man counts them while his brothers continue back to the field to carry the others.
But when he counted every single one of them, he was convinced of something.
“It’s decreasing.” The young man muttered.
“What was that son?” His old man asked him.
“The harvest is a quarter short compared to last year and even the year before it, it’s decreasing.” He said the word again, but this time in a cautious tone.
“Well, the sheeps can always cover it.” The old man scoffed it off.
“Hmm…” And the young man, brooded in silence.
After that he went back to the fields, cleaning up the leftovers with his brothers in a different set of mind from before. The yield that the harvest has given was alarming to him, it has warned him from year to year of its steadily decreasing yields, of its paling colors, of its weak and brittle nature.
He wasn’t dissatisfied anymore, he was now worried, worried of the future that it would bring if they kept doing what they’ve been doing year after year.
He rested for a moment after the clean-up, rested below a tree that’s facing the ocean, the western ocean. He remembers what’s out there, what opportunity that he could have had, it was intoxicating and he pursued it, but… after years of getting blood and mud in his hands, he never got what he deserves, what he wants.
Only a kilo worth of gold he was given when he returned home, a kilo of gold that he still hasn’t use, hasn’t touch, hasn’t even looked at.
“Geir!” A woman, somewhere in the middle of her life, called for the young man, Geir.
“Yes mother?” Geir quickly turned his head towards the woman in her mid 40s, his mother.
“Your father is preparing the lamb and your brothers are preparing the table.”
“And you want me to help them?”
“Atta boy!”
“Haha…” Geir silently chuckled, as he always knows what his mother wants him to do. “Alright.”
As Geir was bringing himself up, a bit lazily, and was about to walk with his mother back to his home, he saw something at a distance.
It was a figure, a human figure as he grew closer and closer to it, he couldn’t make of what it is, but as he took out more distance between him and the figure, he saw what that truly figure is.
He saw a sword in the figure’s hand, saw he was gripping it tight and was talking to the old man, his father. He saw that it was getting heated and…. He saw his father mercilessly hacked down by that figure.
“FATHER!” Geir screamed and ran quickly to his father.
He ran, ran as quick as he could be, as he summons his muscles to increase his speed, to reach to the one who just killed his father, and is about to raid his granary and his house.
But he never reaches his home, it always became more further away from every step he made, as he could only saw in despair of what the figure is doing.
Stealing everything his family has, the crops, the sheeps, the tools, the gold, everything, he saw everything that would keep him and his family survive taken away, it was… a horrifying for Geir.
“Damn it…” He stops as he fell in defeat, he can’t do anything now, he only could see his house burn down, his father butchered, his brothers burned most likely in his house, and… the figure.
It stood in front of him, with the sword at his hand, covered with his father’s blood. The figure stared at him, stared at Geir’s tired and defeated eyes.
Geir could only stare back at him, he has nothing anymore, everything he has, loves, and cares for is gone, to the point of not even caring that the figure in front of him.
Has impaled his heart.
* * *
Geir woke up, drenched in cold sweat, and scared out of his wits. But he was also relieved, relieved it was but a dream as he could still see his two younger brothers, his mother and father still a sleep, safe and sound.
This wasn’t his first dream, or more exactly, this wasn’t his first concern. This concern of a raid to take everything he and his family has, has always been there and even pumped up, with the consistent cold weather and the absences of the western traders, everything here in the land that Geir is living in, Eyklandi, is steadily going to shit.
That was the very reason why he took five years of his life to be a mercenary in the west, being pawns of kings and lords, forced to dip his hands in blood and mud, for what? For land. A warm, rich, and safe land for him and his family.
But that never came to be, as only a kilo of gold was given to him when he returns, a kilo of gold that still sits below his bed.
He couldn’t do anything with it, no merchant or farmer wants gold, they trade with furs, grains, and steel. Gold is but an unnecessary luxury in Eyklandi, only the Jarls and the Konungs use them, but even then, they only use them to make, again, unnecessary luxuries.
It was something he must fix, there must be something he must do, winter will be coming, and it will be more harsher with how cold it is in summer right now and Geir did something.
After a month of no contact with the usual western trader they have, Geir and a couple of his friends, who became mercenaries like him too, sailed west with their products and was about to sell it to them directly and get some answers of their month-long absence.
But they didn’t find anything but ruins, the cities they stayed at and the castles they defended and attacked as mercs were abandoned, not recently even, it was like they have left it thousands of years ago, it was eery, disturbing, and an opportunity.
Geir and his friends returned back to their home and told of this discovery, they told of the now unused and abandoned lands the westerners have left, they told of the opportunity in front of them.
Geir wasn’t denying the opportunity, he was looking forward to it actually, but… his time as a mercenary has made him developed a sixth sense of detecting dangers, and this opportunity he saw, was screaming nonstop, loudly, annoyingly, and horrifyingly at him.
And his guts were right, a month after his friends gathered the volunteering men and women to sail and settle in the west, they were never heard of again.
Disheartening, discouraging, and demoralizing. He loved his friends, his brothers in arms, and it saddens him that he would never meet them again… and the opportunity that was, was but a lie.
But he couldn’t give up now, he can’t, the stakes were too high to admit defeat, he must find it, or it means the death of him and his family, it means losing everything he has built up. He found it of course, it was an obvious but a risky solution, a gamble more or less, sailing east.
“How many times have I said this Geir… THERE ARE NO LANDS TO THE EAST!” His father, yelled at him.
“But what if there is?! Our ancestors said that there were no lands to the west! And what do we have now?! We were trading with them! I was fighting for them! We found the west!” Geir in a passionate tone said.
“And our ancestors have sailed to the east too! And they found nothing! No lands and not even an Island!”
“That’s because their ships were old! Their means of transportation in the sea was a ship as long and big as a damn canoe! We have longships now that can take up more winds to travel more further and faster!”
“We’re not having this conversation again, you know my answer and I am sick of giving it again!”
“But father! We must try! You’ve seen the harvest yields! You’ve seen how it decreases steadily over the years!”
“I am not letting you die in the cold sea!” His father was headstrong about this, but Geir was as headstrong about this also.
“BY THE GODS OLD MAN! This damn island is going to shit! We have to do something!” Geir paused, he was tired, tired of not having what he deserved and tired of the complacencies of his elders. “This damn boundary that people like you made is going to be the end of us! Father… please, this is for you, mother, your two youngest sons and me! For us! We need to go beyond the boundary!”
“…” Geir’s father was silent, can’t utter a word for how dedicated his eldest boy, his pride and joy, was for them. “My answer is still the same, I won’t and will not ever let you die in the cold sea, for a gamble.”
Geir was tired, tired of this back and forth, tired of giving the evidence that there might be something out in the east, something that could safe them. He was tired of trying his best for his family, and he was tired of not getting what he deserves from the five years of his dance with death, misery, war, and blood.
But he can’t be tired, because being tired means you are admitting defeat, admitting that you do not deserve what is rightfully yours from your blood and sweat, Geir must, will, needs to do something, and… in the middle of the night, he packed everything.
Provisions for months, his equipment like his hauberk chainmail, his dark red gambeson, his Gjermundbu helmet with chainmail, his sword, axe, and dagger, he also took his father’s tools for navigating in the sea, like a sunstone, and some of the things that would help him in trading with the people he will meet, a couple of wools and wolf pelts, and his kilo of gold.
He carried all of that, secretly to the docks where his father’s longship was ported, putting all of the stuff he has and was about to set sail to the east. But… in the middle of his preparation, Geir suddenly heard rustlings of bushes and plants not far from him and the docks. He discovered that it was his brothers.
“What are you two doing?!” Geir was surprised.
“What are YOU doing?!” His brother redirected that answer. “Father said no, so what the fuck are you doing?!”
“I’m sailing east, with or without him and his approval! This is for us!”
“Us? Seriously? You mean to say that the five years that you left us wasn’t for your stupid adventure?”
“Yes! By the gods, I was doing it all for you guys! I pour blood and sweat so we could have a nice land!”
“But why didn’t you bother to visit us once a year?!” Geir’s other brother said.
“Eirikr… okay I am sorry for that, I… got to hung up on being the mercenary I was, but I did it for you all! And this time I am doing for you all too!”
“I… I won’t have it!” Eirikr said disgruntledly. “If you’re leaving, I am leaving too!”
“What?”
“Yeah! If Eirikr is going, I am going too!”
“Eirikr! Karl! You both are not going to go with me! It’s dangerous for boys like you!”
“Dangerous my ass, you left us when you were as old as us too! We can handle it! And besides, you need mine and Karl’s hands to help you with the ship!”
“I can handle it on my own!” Geir said in a confident tone.
“Oh really? Are you trying to say that you can handle the sail, the oars, and the steer? All by yourself?”
“I…” Geir, once again, defeated by Karl’s sharp tongue.
“You need us! You can’t do this alone brother!”
“Yeah!” Eirikr in excitement said.
“Hmm… fine, fine! But my commands are absolute! No backtalking in this ship okay!”
““Yes sir!”” They both said in unison.
And after finding a common ground and realizing his two little brothers’ worth, they set sail in the calm night in the sea, travelling to the east.
Though they think they would discover something new, the fact contrasts it, as in reality, they are about to rediscover the old world.
The land where light comes from, Lumenter.
