Attacked and Taken by Vikings (Intro)

Transcript

The wind stung, and the air was filled with a mixture of salt from the ocean below, and the promise of rain from the darkening sky above. Along with the knowledge of what was to come was enough to make any man's hair stand on end. But for Gray, it had him petrified.

Every muscle tense, eyes wide and fixed ahead, as if he were a beast, ready to pounce to the shore beyond which he could not yet see and would take a day or more still to reach. He had never felt such an intense calm before in his life. In the distance, a horn sounded softly, its cries carrying across the waves to the other ships around, but fading to a whisper shortly after.

A slow inhale was followed by a puff of annoyance. It was a time to switch already. His back burned and his arms threatened to fall away from his body if he dared raise them again.

Still, there was already a shuffling on the wood behind him, and the wind suggested that they were already slowing down. So the young man spun and without a word weaved between the rising bodies to find his seat, filling the empty space only seconds after the previous occupant had left. Then the monotonous movement began again.

Each pull, a strain that would have been a sign it was time to stop his regular routines and allow his body to rest, but he did not. No one did. The drums continued, the chanting anchoring him back to the others, clearing his mind, reversing his vision, and reminding him of the rhythm of the unit, the pulse of the pack of beasts around him that an outsider may mistake for human beings.