Man of the Vine

By Richard T. Schrader

In a Norse viking age of axes, sorcery, giants, and dragons - world history and cultural mythology are both equally real and taking place. The globe trekking saga of Fastillion Lemonde begins at his childhood home on the Isle of Vinland during the Norse colonization of the Americas in the 11th Century. Fastillion, of mixed race and the adopted orphan son of his village's Christian priest, he is a young man that can move among the diverse cultures both Norse and native, pagan and Christian. Trained in woodcraft by his native mentor and with refined education from his book-learned father, Fastillion has both the mind and skill that can allow him to survive. When an ancient tribal enemy of all returns from nearly disbelieved legend, they come armed with black magics and the cannibalism-fueled immortality of the Windigo shamans. The viking Norsemen and their native Micmac allies must shake off generations of lazy peaceful living to once again take up their warrior ways. From the author of the ten books of the Gravewalkers survival horror series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard T. Schrader
• Release date: Dec 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311154880

Richard T. Schrader

Suicide Squad 2 and Peacemaker are adaptions of characters from Gravewalkers.The helmets from before are stolen from here. If you liked the show you will love this.Audiobook versions with subtitles are available on Youtube. I will eventually have all 12.For those of you who felt something for my characters, especially my beloved and misunderstood autistic sidekick, that means a lot to me. I wish I could have gotten out of this permanent shadowban through some way other than plagiarism.It's ok that you were only curious. This is a video world now.@RichardTSchrad1 Twitter

Book preview

The Saga of Fastillion Lemonde

Book One

Man of the Vine

Richard T. Schrader

Copyright © 2013 Richard T. Schrader

Copyright © 2022 Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved.

Contents

Cry of the Thunderbird

Bane of Eagles

Sheppard of Lions

Call for Vengeance

Path of the Broken Arrow

Shrine of the Windigo Shamans

Dead and the Damned

No Traitors Among Enemies

Shackles of Loyalty

The Festival of Frigg

Chains of Credence

Chapter 1: Cry of the Thunderbird

At the hour halfway between sundown and midnight on an early summer evening, the waves of high tide surged against a narrow swathe of beach that formed the northern edge of an island in the extreme western vastness of the Atlantic Ocean.

A small sailboat rested askew on its single-beam keel just far enough up the pebble-strewn shore that the surf could not drag it out to sea as it rhythmically retreated.

The lapstrake vessel had sharply pointed lines at both bow and stern as was customary for longboats crafted by Norsemen. Master shipwrights had used their latest technical knowledge to clinker-set hand-shaved planks with wrought-iron nails they sealed in black tar. Though small, the sailboat was a perfect compromise between weight and strength, fully capable of carrying a hand’s count of men on the treacherous open sea even in severe weather.

Further inland was a mixed old growth forest of oak, birch, and maple that covered the island’s interior and formed a nearly sheer barrier that checked the barren periphery of rocky sand.

The only interruption in the otherwise impenetrable woods was several acres of cleared terrain. That open ground was high enough above the sea level that no storm surge or tidal flood would ever inundate it.

The many pointed telltale stumps demonstrated that men had removed the trees by means of axes.

Scattered across that open ground amidst an additional dispersion of coarse grass and immigrant saplings were the remains of a dozen rectangular longhouses.

The dilapidated walls of compacted sod blocks had settled over many decades so that only chest-high ramparts remained of what had once been fine Norse dwellings. The shaggy crests of tall salt-grass that crowned each set of sagging berms shiftlessly waved in harmony with the incoming offshore breezes.

In a sheltered corner within the ruins nearest to the sea was a campfire that flickered steadily from a shallow pit. The comforting radiance pushed back the gloom of night in the wilderness and illuminated the faces of three Norsemen, the youngest of whom wasn’t even old enough to grow a proper beard.

Despite his youth, the lad took long draughts from a leather bottle of potent mead that the company passed between them.

Uncle Hagar, the youth handed the bota to one of the men seated beside him. He solicited a story using the rich Norse language that they shared as their native tongue, What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?

Hagar accepted the supple reservoir then expertly sprayed a stream of dark amber fluid into his mouth from the bota’s walrus-tusk ivory nozzle for a double swallow.

Oleg’s uncle was in his early thirties and dressed in the same sort of blue-dyed wool breeches and buckskin jacket that also adorned his two companions. A disheveled yellow beard and similarly long hair obscured most of his weather-beaten features.

After he reflexively wiped his already dry chin with his sleeve, Hagar scrutinized his nephew with wintry blue eyes that communicated both seriousness and impending honesty.

We Valborgssons are no cutthroat vikings, Oleg, but honest men who work hard for our livelihood. Even so, our clan has always been a folk of the hardiest stock and no strangers to the sword, so you know I am not the sort of man who takes easily to womanly fear or milky caterwauling.

He let his nephew consider that before he began his tale, Bear that in mind as I tell you about the time I was attacked by a thunderbird.

Oleg grimaced disappointment over the offering since thunderbirds were a myth and thus his Uncle Hagar’s story would be a campfire yarn suitable for children.

What Oleg wanted was a manly tale full of rape and brigandage. It was his first season as a full adult, so he no longer wanted them to restrict his ears to stories only fit for young women.

Oleg directed his incredulity toward the third man, Father, a thunderbird? That is just a legend of the skraelings, isn’t it? I’ve heard Aunt Flower-in-winter tell a few stories about them. I’m sure you know a better tale than that.

Hagar felt no surprise that his nephew didn’t believe him since few listeners ever did. It was not in the nature of any man to believe if they had never seen such a fantastical avian predator firsthand.

Oleg’s Uncle urged his older brother, Go ahead, Harald; tell him yourself since he doesn’t believe me.

Harald patiently turned the plump young turkey that a sharpened stick skewered on a frame over their fire. He was five years Hagar’s senior but otherwise markedly similar in features and mannerisms.

There is such a bird, he confirmed soberly despite the mead. I was there the night the thunderbird came. If you listen to your uncle, you might learn something that could save your life one day. There are far worse things hunting on Vinland than just the bears, timber panthers, and wolves.

The honest validation made Oleg curious because if thunderbirds were real, he had to wonder what other stories he had heard told might also be true.

Visions of Norse frost giants, sea dragons, and rock trolls rampaged through his head but he brushed them aside as it was too unnerving to consider that his people’s fantastic sagas could have their roots in truth. He could not accept that what he already knew about thunderbirds could be factual.

Oleg said, Aunt Flower-in-winter told me that thunderbirds are so huge that they feed on whales and need powerful storms just to have winds strong enough to keep them aloft.

His mocking tone emphasized how ludicrous that description sounded.

You give too much confidence to my wife’s words, Hagar complained, and not enough to mine. She knows a lot of things, but she doesn’t know a damn thing about thunderbirds.

There was an unmistakable inflection of respect in Hagar’s voice as he named the beast that he claimed had nearly taken his life, such that it convinced Oleg that his uncle was not spinning a tall tale, but instead spoke from genuine personal experience.

Oleg relented then sat back, Tell me about the real thunderbird then.

After he passed the bota to his elder brother, Hagar began his story, Many years have passed since that night when the thunderbird came. It was two years before you were born, but I still remember it all as though it happened only yesterday.

He pointed north through the sod wall toward the sea, its surf, and their beached sailboat, Your father and I had spent the day casting nets off of North Beach with your grandfather. Just like today, we finished up at sunset then came here to the Hoap ruins to camp and clean the catch.

Because the wind was against us, it became dark before we made our landfall. The boat’s lamp was burning as your father and I pulled the oars. I had the set nearest to the stern. Your grandfather was telling us a story about the redskins. There was no warning before the thunderbird struck.

Deep emotions welled up in Hagar and he had to pause while he sublimated them.

It came down silent as an owl, Harald continued the story to draw attention away from his brother’s momentary vulnerability.

We didn’t even hear so much as a whisper before its talons were already sinking into your Uncle Hagar.

Hagar promptly recovered his formidable demeanor then fixed his fingers into rigid claws to give emphasis to Harald’s words.

When the thunderbird seized me by the shoulders it felt like I was being stabbed by a pair of iron-tined hay forks.

His sober expression turned grim and what followed was as close to an admission of fear as he had ever spoken, Never was there a time, before or since, that I ever thought I was so close to dying.

As Hagar took a forlorn breath, Harald took up the story again, Like a white headed eagle it was.

He spread his hands wide overhead to demonstrate the amazing size of the raptor, Only it was all black and its wings spread wider than the length of my sailboat.

Harald scrutinized the empty air above him as though the thunderbird hovered there at that very moment so that he could describe it by sight.

"The wind from its wings was like the gusts from a gale and its deafening screech was like the sound of a calving glacier. Even now, I can hear the words that your grandfather cried when he saw it. It’s Hraesvelg, the corpse eater; by the gods we’re already dead!"

Even now he still believes it is so and never speaks of what he saw lest Hraesvelg returns to take him back to his lair in Niflheim.

Oleg was familiar with Hraesvelg from the sagas of his people. He was a terrible giant who used magic to assume the form of an equally massive eagle. Hraesvelg’s perch was beyond the edge of the world and overlooked Hel the dismal citadel of the dishonored dead that was somewhere deep in the trackless frozen region of mists the Norse called Niflheim. The sweep of Hraesvelg’s enormous wings supposedly powered all the winds of the world.

Your uncle was bigger than you are now, Harald continued, but the thunderbird yanked him up out of your grandfather’s boat like he was no heavier than a rabbit.

Oleg adhered to every word from his father but wanted his Uncle Hagar to finish his own story, What did you do to escape?

He had a tremor of excitement in his voice, Did you slash the thunderbird with your knife or splash it with flaming oil from the lamp?

Hagar recovered the bota then took several copious gulps to clear the dryness from his throat.

As the thunderbird lifted me into the air, your grandfather grabbed the gaff, he pantomimed an aggressive overhead raking motion to demonstrate how his father had fought to save him.

The old man did his best to set the hook in the thunderbird, but he wasn’t quick enough. The thunderbird had already flown too high.

Hagar kneaded his left shoulder as though it still hurt from the claws that had injured him so many years before.

I kicked and struggled for all I was worth, but that thunderbird had a grip on me like the tongs of a fire giant blade-smith. Higher and higher, it took me up into the sky. I’ll never forget staring down and seeing the faces of your father and the old man in the boat below me. I knew they were thinking what I was thinking, that I was going to be supper for the beast.

Oleg’s captivated tone urged his uncle to continue, Ah, what then? How did you manage to survive?

It just dropped me, Hagar impassively revealed the anticlimactic outcome as he shrugged his shoulders.

Maybe I was too heavy to carry all the way back to its nest or maybe Odin sang one of his magic charms to save me. Maybe it was Hraesvelg and he realized I was not one of the dishonored spirits seeking to escape from Hel and so was not a morsel fitting for his gullet. Who can say for sure? We’ll never know.

He searched around to find the water jug, but his unsteady hand knocked it over instead, which dumped out the last of its contents into the sandy soil.

The way that his uncle needed to try and disguise his meekness disturbed Oleg. He had never imagined that anything that walked, crawled, swam, or flew could make Hagar feel shame or fear.

It was by no courage or rage of his own that he had survived the thunderbird’s attack. Valhalla was for Norse warriors who died fighting valorously. Oleg shared his uncle’s doubt that such a rabbit’s death would have earned him a place in the company of Odin’s Einherjar.

To show his respect for his uncle, Oleg made no comment or expression that might reveal his thoughts. He merely waited for Hagar to recover his naturally impervious demeanor.

Hagar nonchalantly set the water jug back upright. By that time, he had regained the composure to finish his story in a suitably obdurate manner.

I fell from higher than the tallest tree and when I hit the water it knocked me senseless. If it wasn’t for your father jumping in and fetching me from the sea, I would surely have drowned.

The story carried the ring of truth for Oleg. He addressed his father with a satisfied smile, You always said that it was important that a man know how to swim. Now I see why. You saved Uncle Hagar’s life.

Harald was a genuine Norseman so he properly took no notice of praise as though it were commonplace for him. He just poked at the roasting turkey with his knife to see how fully cooked it was.

This is just about ready. He raised his eyes to his son, Go fill the water jug and then we’ll eat. After supper, I’ll tell you the story about the slaughter that occurred at this village. It happened one night more than eighty years ago. On a night much like this one, every villager here died an agonizing death.

Oleg got to his feet, brushed the dead grass off his backside, and then took up the unlit oil lamp by its looped handle.

The enclosed copper pot had a short spout that sported a flax wick. It was not of Norse manufacture. The lamp had come from a coppersmith’s shop in one of the kingdoms of Europe on the other side of the Atlantic.

Oleg fumbled with the polished copper half-chimney that served double duty as a windbreak and reflector.

He considered how to discourage his father from telling the tale of the massacre at Hoap village. Oleg had heard several versions of it before and frankly had gotten fed-up with it.

Oleg realized it would not be easy to dissuade his father. The Norse admired a skilled storyteller so much that one good tale almost always instigated a competition. Harald wanted his proper chance to prove that he was as good a skald as Hagar was, if not better.

Grandfather has already educated me in all he knows about this place, Oleg told his father to convey his lack of interest in the redundant recounting.

Aunt Flower-in-winter told me everything he didn’t know. Grandfather began with how Thorvald left his brother Erik as chieftain of their clan in Greenland then came here with a flotilla and settled the two villages.

As the first Drighten of Vinland, Thorvald ordered all his thanes to free their thralls just as soon as the two villages were standing. The crops had not taken root and food was getting scarce. The freed thralls and most of the churls came here, built the third village of Hoap where they fished to feed themselves.

They didn’t last long as freemen though. Soon after they had finished building their longhouses, a war party of redskins killed them all in the opening battle of the Beothuk war. It was an old story even for grandfather; he heard it from his own grandfather.

Harald persevered because winning an unreceptive audience was just another part of the skaldic trade.

If you heard the whole story, then you must know that the redskins considered this island part of their winter hunting grounds. They would come south at the end of each year to escape the biting cold and harsh blizzards of the north.

The new churls had far more pride than wits and foolishly refused the advice of all the thanes that they should surround their longhouses with proper defenses. Even with a ditch, rampart, and stout palisade, the redskins would still have slaughtered them. They were just cowardly peasants after all and not iron-hearted kin to jarls as are true Norsemen such as we.

Oleg remained disinterested since he heard nothing new, Yes, I know all that; everyone does.

Harald persevered, Then my father must have also told you that the freed thralls’ most foolish mistake of all was placing their village right here on top of a redskin burial ground. They dug up scores of bodies from red-ochre stained graves to make way for their longhouses.

He watched his son’s eyes to gauge his interest, which was still nonexistent, Since he told you all that, I’m sure he also mentioned to you that those redskin skraelings ate everyone after killing them.

Oleg carefully fished a small brand from the fire then used it to light the lamp, Yes, I heard that story from grandfather, but Aunt Flower-in-winter told me that the Beothuk didn’t actually eat anyone. They were just upset about the bodies of their dead being disturbed. Her people hated the Beothuk as much as anyone did. She would have no reason to lie.

Harald remained skeptical of what he considered the tainted opinion of a biased local, She told you that; did she?

Norsemen only spared the derogatory appellation of skraeling in her case because she was married to a Norseman and so thereby stood elevated above the lowly status of ignorant savage.

She told me the same thing, Hagar confirmed the explanation fostered by his wife.

She said they liked to butcher the bodies of their slain enemies to prevent them from getting any sort of fitting funeral. They buried their honored dead whole instead of burning them as proper folk do. Even Those-who-smoke burn their dead warriors. They call the bodies of their heroes, Tobacco of the Gods.

Harald was trying to build up interest in his story not debate the funerary rituals of Markland’s skraelings, whether they were redskins, the unsociable tobacco-smoking Iroquois, or the Norse’s Algonquin allies; even so, he decided to indulge the matter since it seemed to be of interest to Oleg and so was something he could build on, What else did she say?

Oleg happily deflated his father’s assumptions of cannibalism and at the same time finished off his interest in telling his version of the massacre.

She told me how the Beothuk believed that when a man enters the next world, he has only those parts of himself that his tribe has ceremoniously buried him with.

When the Beothuk learned that the Hoap settlers had destroyed their burial ground, they took that as a kind of evil magic meant to disrupt the afterlives of their relatives. They killed everyone here as an act of revenge.

As further vengeance, they defleshed all the bodies to condemn the Hoap settlers to a kind of eternal suffering, like sending them to that Hell Father Alvito is always going on about. The reason they cooked them first was to hasten the process of butchering them.

Then how does she explain what the redskins did to their bones?

Harald referred to the fact that the first Norsemen who reached the village after the massacre had found that the bones of the victims not only bore the telltale butchering slices from the redskin’s flint knives, the Beothuk had also broken the bones to extract the edible marrow.

Oleg had a ready answer, Aunt Flower-in-winter explained to me that the redskins used stones to shatter all the large bones so that the settlers could not even be so much as senseless skeletons in the next world. Because they broke caribou bones for marrow in just the same way, it did seem like they had made a meal of them. In truth they didn’t.

Hagar was familiar with all the myriad versions of the Hoap massacre as well as anybody, but he liked Harald’s accounting best since it was full of all the exciting atrocities that made for a great horror story. He wanted to hear his brother tell it all the way through to the end. They were camping for the night and had nothing better to do anyway besides eat, drink, and tell stories.

She does tell it that way, Hagar said in a tone that denounced his wife’s opinions in favor of Harald, but I know that the redskins cooked the thralls so that they could eat their flesh and then they cracked all the bones to slurp out the brains and hot marrow.

Those redskins were nothing but a bunch of no good red-painted man-eating bastards. If you ask me, they got everything they earned and deserved even worse. Thorvald himself died fighting in the war against the redskins. Men such as Thorvald should not be diminished with foolish talk favoring his enemies.

Harald still had a ploy left in his skaldic storytelling arsenal.

He gave his son a conspiratorial glance, Man eating aside, I’ll wager neither your aunt nor your grandfather thought you were old enough to hear about all the ways they tortured the men before they died or the awful things that they had done to the women and children.

Previous storytellers had denied Oleg all the strictly adult minutiae so he felt tempted to hear the vulgar particulars described even if they were not all true.

A major part of Norse storytelling was that the skald had the freedom of colorfully embellishing the supporting details to entertain his audience, so long as all the major characters lived or died appropriately.

Oleg was well aware that most or all of the gory descriptions would be fictitious since no one had actually witnessed the events firsthand then survived to tell about them.

Regardless of the inaccuracies, he wanted to hear his father tell the story all the same. The brutal rapes of virgins and tortures of children was just the kind of gruesome narrative he wanted to hear while he sat by the evening campfire.

Oleg confirmed with a pitiless grin worthy of his ancestry that he was finally interested in listening to his father recount the whole story in all its macabre detail.

I’ll go get water and when I get back, you can tell me what really happened here that night, while we eat.

After a satisfied nod of agreement from his father, Oleg took up the empty water jug then hiked off to fill it.

Anticipation for his father’s tale motivated Oleg to hurry away on his errand, just as the delicious scent of the roasted turkey goaded him on as well. With the seal oil lamp burning at its fullest wick to illuminate his way, he briskly hiked off for the nearby stream.

A convenient source of abundant fresh water was the primary reason that the settlers had built their village over the Beothuk’s burial ground in the first place. It was that and the great fishing to be had in the channel between Vinland and the Markland mainland, which was only a league away to the north and by far the closest connection.

The rectangle of berms the men used for their overnight refuge had only one opening. It was a narrow gap in the center of the short east wall opposite their fire. It had once been a doorway that the builders had framed in stone. Not even decades of erosion had widened it significantly.

Oleg exited through the breach then turned south to make his way uphill through the center of the cleared land past the other ruins. He crossed more than an acre of open ground before he reached the water supply for the defunct village.

It was a spring fed stream that emerged from the woods to enter a ring of stones that collected the narrow brook into a spacious manmade pool. From there the water flowed into a handcrafted channel that raced off northwest toward the beach.

He rested his lamp on a flat stone and then bent over the pool to fill the water jug. Oleg took his time not to skim up any leaves or other floating debris. The moon reflected on the water and it danced over the ripples the container made in the current.

Just as he straightened up after he finished his task, a shadow passed across the lunar face briefly blocking its light. The moment of unexpected darkness triggered an unreasonable terror in Oleg that seized him like the piercing claws of the thunderbird that he envisioned had just passed in front of the moon on its way down to kill him.

He heard no sound of wings nor did he have any other indication of such a danger beyond a primordial sense as a crafty rabbit might use to escape from an unseen stooping hawk.

Oleg acted on his instincts without any time wasted in deliberation. Rather than be taken off as supper for a brood of hungry thunderbird chicks, he dove into the cold water of the pool then hid beneath the surface for as long as his breath could sustain him.

He finally broke the surface in a spray of water to suck a desperately needed breath. Oleg felt overjoyed to find no sign of any thunderbird. He was also pleased that his splashing upon entry and exit had not extinguished his lamp, though he had managed to moisten it.

The sky was devoid of giant raptors. There was only the moon, stars, and several small clouds. As he watched skyward, one of the latter passed over the moon to recreate the temporary darkness that had frightened him.

As Oleg climbed out of the pool shivering with a slight chill, he felt foolish for having let his uncle’s story and his own childish imagination get the better of him.

With the lamp in one hand and full water jug in the other, Oleg headed back for the campfire. As he walked, he composed the excuse he would offer his father and uncle about why he was soaking wet. Oleg decided to tell them he slipped on a loose stone and thus fell into the pool. He had no doubt that he would never hear the end of it if the village ever learned the truth.

Before Oleg had finished a dozen paces, he heard the crack of a dry twig that snapped somewhere near the pool behind him. He was sufficiently skilled in wilderness craft to understand that it was a sound that could only mean the presence of some man or animal.

Since he was still fresh from a cold bath brought on by irrational panic, Oleg did his best to remain calm and not make the same foolish mistake all over again.

He tucked the water jug into the crook of his arm that held the lamp then he put his free hand to the horn-hilted knife he wore at his belt. When he turned about, he saw only the pool and the tall grass that concealed the ground all the way to the edge of the woods thirty paces further on behind it.

Oleg put the water jug on the ground and then held up his lamp. He shined a wide beam using the reflector to get maximum range out of his light.

To feel safer, he drew out his knife from its buckskin sheath then held it before him. The low-carbon open-hearth steel blade was harder and sharper than a similar bloom-iron knife. He considered himself fortunate to own so expensive a variant of the utilitarian tool, as did all the men of his village.

To Norsemen, all steel had a mystical majesty that leant not only prestige but also an accompanying sense of comfort as other people might get from a religious totem.

At first, Oleg wondered if his father, uncle, or both had crept out then followed him to try and scare him. It was a comforting notion until he tightened his hand around the handle of his knife. The nervous reflex was a harsh reminder that he tried to deny darker assumptions. The weapon was a trivial security for warding off violence anyway. He had never used it for anything bloodier than cleaning fish and game.

It occurred to Oleg that his father or uncle would have been guffawing with laughter after they watched him fall into the pool. He amended his suspicion by attributing the noise to some animal that had been sleeping in the grass until he had disturbed it with his splashing and fumbling.

Oleg remained still and listened. He hoped it was a bedded down deer, not that he was going to get close enough to find out. While he waited, he rehearsed the rule for situations involving stalking predators.

Any of the major forest carnivores would leave him alone if he didn’t force it into a corner or act like helpless food. Oleg’s reasoning told him that his only real need for caution was if he was dealing with a wounded beast that was no longer able to hunt natural prey.

Oleg remembered the words of his Aunt Flower-in-winter when she spoke of the great predators, wolves, bears, and panthers.

The noble hunting beasts are the sacred brothers of human beings, she had told him. Only the madness of starvation or the foolish acts of men will ever make them your enemy. If the time comes that they are hunting you, she warned, be wary and even afraid. There is a reason those who survive such encounters are distinguished warriors.

The light from the lamp foiled Oleg’s night vision without the added benefit of shining far enough for him to see properly where he wanted. Seal oil did