An Oath to Odin

Copyright © 2018 Richard Cooper.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.’

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-3766-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-3767-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018900072

iUniverse rev. date: 01/08/2018

Contents

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For the two women it has been my great privilege to love, the first no longer with us and the second supporting me still. I will always love you both, each differently but just as strongly.

For all my brothers who have gone down into the sea.

The iron men in those steel ships.

The memories remain, a comfort to me.

R. E. Cooper

(SS/AW) USN

Retired

1

I T WAS A COLD, DARK night filled with all the terrors a young man—really still a boy—would imagine after the day he had lived through. Marauding barbarians had murdered all of Thor’s family and neighbors. Thor had been able to escape only because he was taken for dead after being knocked unconscious by a glancing blow to the head. Cold, wet, and alone, Thor prayed for daylight so he might discover if any others yet lived. At fifteen years old, he was large for his age, standing a shade less than six feet tall. His muscles had started to develop, but he still retained some of the clumsiness and fat of early boyhood. Unruly, blond, blood-matted, shoulder-length hair covered his head, hiding eyes that were the color of the ocean depths.

Rising above the still-smoldering village, the sun shone on Thor’s face. Thor set out to determine what he could scavenge from the ruins of his destroyed home. Searching the ruins, he located his father, who had died valiantly protecting the great hall. Tears fell when Thor realized that he might well be the only survivor. All his relatives and people had been murdered or taken as slaves, leaving him alone, injured, and without any means of support. Blinding sunlight shone off the fjord, and Thor wished his head would cease its pounding. The scavenger birds were beginning to gather, their gruesome feast on the bodies of his family, friends, and neighbors getting under way. Vomiting into the dust of the main road, Thor decided that in order to survive, he had to find something to eat. Then he would begin the task of burying his dead.

Thor knew of the secret hiding places where his people stored food. He was disappointed to find that they too had been raided. This was truly disheartening, and he almost despaired. Sitting in the lee of a downed tree, Thor plotted his revenge with an oath to Odin. Oh, mighty Odin, as I stand a poor and miserable soul with no real battle experience and less in the way of worldly possessions, I, Thor, son of Gren, pledge my life in your service. To bring glory and prestige to your name, I will rebuild my father’s village and avenge the deaths of my people. To this I will dedicate my life and my skills as they grow. With your guidance, I will rule the world!

Such a strong oath from one so young! piped Char, the old crone who seemed to materialize out of thin air. A young man would do well to be wary when making such oaths, for this is an especially strong oath and one that cannot be taken lightly; Odin is listening.

Recovering from his initial surprise, Thor regarded the village’s healer and soothsayer with a look of trepidation. Her cloudy gaze, from cataract-occluded eyes, was disconcerting. The old woman who approached Thor was old when Thor’s father had been a boy. She had raven-black hair that always seemed to be dirty and unkempt. She dressed in coarse woolen robes that were in need of repair, smelling of smoke and things best not thought of. Char was known to walk in Odin’s light and frequently foretold the future. Thor replied to her pronouncement with no small amount of respect. Then he’ll know that I’m serious, for I am my father’s son!

Cackling wildly, the old woman nodded in solemn understanding. Char had cast the runes the previous night, in the light of a full moon that had appeared after the storm. She had seen all of Thor’s proclamations and knew he was likely to accomplish them. His only problem would be living long enough to confirm the rune’s prediction.

Using a basket that was lying discarded in the road, Thor scraped enough grain off the ground to make a decent breakfast. Without regard for the occasional leaf or clump of dirt in his meager meal, Thor broke his fast, eating quietly while sharing what he had found with the crone. Working throughout the day, Thor buried the dead in shallow trenches dug next to the bodies. Silently rolling the bodies into the makeshift graves, Thor wept as he covered each familiar face. By nightfall, he had buried his people and was exhausted. Thor was hungry and without shelter, and the soothsayer had not helped at all throughout the day. Char had occupied herself by idly singing songs of lament, looking for all the world like she was enjoying herself.

Since Thor’s birth, he had been trained as a Viking lord’s son, becoming skilled in the use of the bow, the sword, and the spear and in hunting. Therefore, he really didn’t fear starvation. True, he was lonely and afraid, yes, but Thor possessed an independent spirit. Searching through the ruins of the village, he found a few singed hides and, as if Odin had intervened, a sword. It wasn’t a particularly great sword, but it was a sword nonetheless. Sitting under the stars, Thor knew that his prayer had been heard. Confident in the knowledge that his people were in Valhalla, feasting and looking down on him with love and support, Thor wrapped himself in the hides and drifted off to sleep.

As morning broke, Thor declared, I am my father’s son, and I will not be denied! This was a traditional declaration amid the men of his village when they set out to go adventuring. He felt it was an apt expression for his journey through life from this day forward. Thor recovered as much of the grain as he could and placed it in the makeshift containers he had devised. Later in the day, Thor looked up and saw Greta, one of the prettier girls of the village, wandering out of the surrounding woods as though she was in a daze. Thor called to her, but she seemed to take no notice until Char scurried over and led her to the fire they had kindled.

Greta related how she had been in the forest looking for berries when the attack began and she had run away, hoping to escape. She said that she had not seen any other members of the village and was surprised that she was alive. By evening, four more had joined their little group. There was Garth, one of his father’s lesser lieutenants, who had been out hunting with his son, Grell; Amana, one of the women who had been bathing in the fjord; and a small boy who wouldn’t speak.

I have come too late to aid the village, but perhaps this haunch of deer will help stave off starvation for the while, Garth said as he approached Thor. You’re now the leader of this village and responsible for its well-being. If it is your wish, I’ll continue to do the hunting until we can decide how best to support ourselves.

Garth, you’ve served my father in the past, and I ask that you serve me as well. We’ll rebuild our village and then see what may come on the morrow. Thor sat and contemplated what he was going to do now that they were without home and he had declared vengeance on his enemies. Remembering a map that his father had shown him of the lands surrounding their holdings, Thor recalled a village to the south that was friendly to his people and had often traded with his father. Thor decided he would go to the village and request aid. If they could dry enough meat and gather a few hides, perhaps they could at least try to trade something. He would scour the ruins of the village for whatever had been left behind. While searching the secret hiding places of his father, to his surprise, Thor found one undisturbed. Breaking the seals and lifting the stone covering, he gasped at what he saw. There was a bag of gold coins and one of silver coins, a jeweled dagger, and the maps he remembered seeing every time his father had planned a foray into known lands where wealth could be taken if one was bold. A search of the rest of the village yielded more scorched furs and a few baskets but nothing else of value.

As the sun rose the next morning, Garth suggested that he and Thor go down to the fjord where the ships his father had owned were beached to see if the departing marauders had dropped anything. At the landing, there was no sign of the three majestic longboats and the one dragon ship Thor’s father had owned, but, to their astonishment, there was an old longboat that the marauders must have abandoned in favor of the village’s better ships. It was smaller than the others but could still be made serviceable. Thor, I think that Odin has smiled on you today, for no Viking with a longboat shall be poor for long! We only need a few men who will rally to our banner, and we can build a fortune! shouted Garth in obvious good spirits.

Since the longboat had been hastily rendered useless, it required very little to make it seaworthy again. Garth worked on the longboat for the rest of the day while Thor took Grell into the woods and began the difficult task of chopping boughs to construct a shelter for the small party.

Thor used his sword to cut the pine boughs that Grell then stacked in piles. Since it was hard to get the blade to bite the wood properly, Thor tired after cutting a small pile. By the start of the afternoon, when Greta and Amana called the men to eat the meager meal of porridge, made with pine nuts and venison, Thor and Grell had managed to accumulate a rather sizeable pile of pine boughs for their lodge. Dragging the pine boughs to the site selected for the new lodge was hot, grueling work, but all knew that it was essential if they were to survive. Evening brought another meal of dried pine nuts and venison. Then, as the fire died down, they talked about the group’s situation and ways that each had found to contribute to their small community. Char agreed to watch after the small boy, who was about ten years old. Greta and Amana would salvage what was left of the crops in the community’s small fields.

Garth and Thor would start hunting daily to supplement their food supplies while providing the hides that the small group would need for clothing, ropes, and trade as well as continuing to work on the longboat.

Grell would begin the new lodge by selecting the salvageable timbers from the old lodges of the village. With this separation of the work, Thor’s small band felt that they had accomplished a great deal in the four days since the raid. Slowly, the fire died down, and everybody sank deeper into what little comfort they could find and drifted off to sleep. Thor, however, couldn’t sleep. He felt a great yearning to seek out the murderers of his village and to see their blood flow in the dirt at his feet.

Thor walked out of the circle of his band. The old crone rose and paced along at a respectful distance behind him. When Thor became aware of her presence, he asked, What do the runes say?

They say that the end of summer will see you on a grand adventure fraught with danger and death. However, if you survive, you will be able to buy the supplies needed to sustain us through the winter, replied Char.

Then we must continue on the path we have started?

Yes. Remember your oath, Thor, and Odin will see fit to guide you. The old crone, feeling that Thor wanted to be alone with his thoughts, returned to the glow of the dying fire.

Dawn found Thor and Garth a mile from the encampment, waiting beside a stream for a deer to come for a morning drink. Thor, without thinking, had belted on the sword that he had found. Although it was in dire need of sharpening, it was the only weapon he had. When the sun peaked over the rim of the small glade, Garth rose and fired an arrow that hit with a resounding thud into the side of a large buck that had emerged from the edge of woods. Falling within a hundred paces of where it had been shot, the buck died.

Garth began the process of gutting the deer as Thor wandered into the woods, searching for a berry patch or a likely place to gather pine nuts. After he had been gone a short time, Thor heard a yell and ferocious growling from some beast in the direction of the stream where he had left Garth. Yanking his sword from his belt, he ran toward the sound of a terrible fight. Garth’s shouts were becoming less robust by the minute, indicating that the fight was in favor of whatever animal he was battling. Bursting through the edge of the woods, Thor came face-to-face with an immense black bear. Garth was nowhere to be seen. The bear was hunched over the deer, beginning to eat. Sighting Thor, the bear reared onto his hind legs and gave a mighty roar. Thor was overtaken by a strange sensation and could only respond with a defiant yell of his own as he closed the remaining six feet between them.

Towering over Thor by three feet, the bear bared his fangs and extended his talons in a huge swipe that would have decapitated Thor, had it connected. Thor ducked under the swinging paw and drove his sword into the bear’s chest hard enough that it emerged from the bear’s back. The bear began swinging at Thor and fighting the blade that was sunk to the hilt in his chest. Thor, hanging onto the pommel of the sword, was trying desperately to pull it free when the bear let out a fetid gasp and collapsed in a heap. Thor, faint with the sudden cessation of battle lust, collapsed into a squat and just stared at the bear. He never would have believed that he would charge into attacking a large bear with just his sword. It just wasn’t done. Bears were usually hunted with dogs, spears, and bows, not swords.

Garth, lifting his head over a fallen tree, stared with disbelief, first at Thor, then at the bear. You surely have the favor of Odin with you, Thor, for no one could have killed a bear that size with just a sword!

I don’t know what happened. I just got mad and charged the bear.

When you become a great war leader, Thor, I’ll sing of this day for years to come, Garth replied, laughing. Here I am, knocked senseless, when out of the woods you come screaming at the top of your lungs. You just ducked down and stabbed that great bear through and through. What a tale to tell! I only wish that I were a bard, so I might give the tale justice.

I don’t want any tales. I just thought that you had been killed. We needed that deer, so I felt I had the right to defend my property.

Aye, and now we have an even bigger load to carry back!

Garth was not seriously injured, since he had managed to fend the bear off with his bow, but he was knocked about in the scuffle. Suffering numerous bruises and scrapes, Garth began the skinning process on the bear. Meanwhile, Thor constructed a basket out of pliable branches to help carry back the hearts and livers of the two animals. Then he cut a long pole to suspend the carcass. Not able to carry both the bear and the deer, the two men decided they would first carry the deer back to the camp and then return for the bear. Placing the organs into the basket, they suspended the deer and set out for home.

Arriving at the edge of the settlement, Garth began an intrepid saga that was largely exaggerated and out of tune. He sang about the great hunter, Thor, who hunts bears for sport with a sword and a fearless heart. Hearing the singing, the women and boys gathered around to hear the tale of bravery and fearlessness from Garth. Char beamed at Thor and winked. Thor bellowed for everyone to quiet down and said, I just wasn’t thinking. If we want to get the bear home, we need to start soon. I judge it may take two trips to carry so much meat to the village. So, gathering up their baskets and knives, the group went to retrieve the bear meat and the hide, a chore that took them most of the morning to complete.

Setting up drying poles on which to hang the meat and starting small smoking fires took the majority of the afternoon. The women were busy butchering the carcasses and hanging the meat when Grell announced that he had found sixteen timbers among the ruins that were still serviceable for building. Thor and Garth left the women to continue drying the meat. Following Grell, they surveyed the timbers he had selected. Thor chose the largest timber to be the center post for the lodge, and between the three of them, they were able to drag it the distance to the building site. Grell began work digging a hole in which the post would stand while Thor led Garth in a circle that would outline their lodge. Thor’s proposed building was approximately thirty feet in diameter, and Garth was skeptical about the small group’s ability to construct something so large.

Garth, when we have enough meat and hides to trade, we’ll go to the village south of here and try to increase our fortune. If we’re lucky, I’ll be able to persuade some of the men from that village to follow me. We’ll require lodging for them as well as for ourselves. Therefore, we’ll build with an eye to the future.

But, Thor, if we convince others to move here, we risk starving, for there won’t be enough food to carry us through the winter, let alone more people.

I plan to buy food, if need be, or to raid one of our enemies if we can get enough men to follow me. Then we will have enough to make the winter. We’ll also supplement our existence with hunting and fishing.

Hah! I’m no fisherman!

True, but if you wish to eat, you may soon become one!

Well said, Thor, for every hungry man becomes what is needed when need be. Farmer, hunter, or fisher, I will do what is required to help you keep us fed.

Good. Then let’s finish designing my hold!

Constructing the lodge was given priority over hunting, since there was only so much meat that could be dried at one time. Once the lodge poles were set and the thatch placed on the frames, the lodge began resembling a human place instead of a crude, barbaric shelter. The spirits of the group rose daily. After a week, the meat was dried, and the women had made rough baskets to store the bounty. The hides were still curing, and the lodge was slowly being completed.

One day, Grell returned from a trip to the fjord with a brace of geese struggling under his arms. He had caught them by swimming under water and grabbing their feet from below. Since Grell was still young, he thought the whole ordeal was great fun.

That evening, over a meal of roasted goose and porridge, flavored with wild onions and berries, Thor asked his people for an inventory of how much meat they had accumulated. Thor was told that, with the bear and the deer, they had managed to smoke some two hundred pounds of meat, but they were eating the store at a rapid rate. Thor knew that with the amount of work that he and Garth needed to perform, he would have to set Garth to hunting while he continued to work on the lodge. Since the women were no longer smoking meat, at least until Garth managed to bring in more, he instructed Grell to build some fish traps for the women to tend.

The days continued to stretch into weeks. The meager crop that Greta and Amana were able to save was harvested. Their store of dried meat grew rapidly, since the fish traps had proven a good idea. There were many days that Garth was unable to bag any game large enough to do more than feed the small band, and the fish that were caught kept the drying poles full.

Amana approached Thor one sunny morning and stated, I have a surprise for you. Befuddled, Thor followed her down to the fjord where she began explaining that the large bowl-shaped recesses in the granite along the shore was crusted with salt. Thor said simply that he didn’t see what relevance that had on their livelihood, and she snorted derisively, saying, Men, always ready to eat the meals without a care as to how they are prepared. The salt that we flavor our food with comes from here. Salt is also valuable for trade. I have been scraping these bowls for your father for years and have continued to do so all summer. I have nearly thirty-five pounds of salt stored in a sack that can be used for trade when you go on your voyage.

Amana, I’m sorry. I forgot that we had a way to collect salt. My education has been primarily centered on the implements of war. I guess I will have to learn more about running a village if I am to become a proper chieftain.

I guess that you are also ignorant in the ways of love.

I have not, nor likely will I be, in love, unless I find some way to increase our population. One old crone, one girl, one woman, two men, and two boys doesn’t lend itself to finding a bride!

You are as big a dolt as your father! exclaimed Amana. Don’t you realize that the ‘girl’ you so easily dismiss is as old as you and thinks the sun and moon are yours to command?

Who? Greta? She never even speaks to me, and I rarely see her.

"Well, she sees you and has spoken to me about you on numerous occasions. ‘Thor this and