This is what happens when Martin Owton and I have too much time on our hands. Can you guess which entries are his and which are mine? By the way, Martin is working on a new epic fantasy that I can’t wait to read. But for now, you can check out Exile, his first book in his tales of swordsman Aron of Darien.
The Diaries of a Homesick Viking
Dear Odin,
We’ve been blown westward for the past seven days, and have had nothing but rolling high seas and lots of fog. I keep thinking I can hear skraelings off the port bow. Grey and damp here, might as well be in Ireland.
Odin grant relief from this stomach ache. I never wish to see a pickled herring again. A man needs meat!
I dreamed of Helga again last night. She looked as lovely as the goddess Frigja. But when she spoke, all I heard was a skraeling’s shriek. I woke to a splash of seawater and the other men all laughing at me. Will we ever see land again?
The Gods mock us. Three times we have sighted land but with only sheer cliffs and no place come ashore. We have opened the last barrel of herrings.
Every time I set my oar to water to take a stroke, Thorvaldr Gislason throws a herring at the back of my head. Will this voyage never end?
My hands bleed and my lips crack with the salt water. I have not shit in days. Everything tastes of pickled herring.
Go a-viking, they said. Plunder new lands, they said. Odin’s Eye, but what I wouldn’t give for meat, mead, and someone to kill. Gods damn you, Thorvaldr! Quit it with the herring!
The Norns curse Harald for bringing us to this desolate shore. We should have gone to Cymru where the sheep and women are plump and herrings are fed to cats.
Well. We’ve reached the end of the whale’s road. The mists flow down from the land over the shore. I see neither villages to plunder, nor fat game to hunt. Bitter flows the blood in my veins.
Great. Skraelings.
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