Erak inhaled the fresh and chilling air as he emerged from the Temple. He was in a spectacular good mood, felt closer to the Gods than he'd done in years, and overall he felt alive. He had always enjoyed to visit Uppsala, yet in the months before he would unleash his plans, he felt that the support of the Gods was of severe importance.

Four of his Huscarls sat on small logs around a fire outside the Temple, not that he needed them. The fierce and loyal warriors was merely a show of power. He stretched his arms under the thick cloak and looked out over the surrounding lands. It was dusk, and the light was quickly dwindling. The woods around Uppsala and the waters of Mälaren was illuminated by the gloomy orange light.

Although many was still moving among the trees back and forth from the Temple, many had headed down to the village. As was evident by the sound of fighting that crowding has an ability to cause. Turning his gaze to the left, he spotted an old and grizzled warrior sitting by himself, with a black cloak swept around him. Walking over and leaning himself against the wall next to the old man, Erak said "One is never alone, least of all here. The Gods are with us, always and forever."

Slowly turning his head and looking down on the old man, he asked "Tell me, what do you pray for?"

Brynjar cast an eye over the well dressed man. He had little time for luxuries, but he would indulge the figure whilst he was here. The light had finally faded totally, and a pitch black surrounded the temple, only penetrated by the fingers of light cast by the braziers. In the distance he howls of wolves sounded, Brynjar's fingertips prickling in anticipation. He did not know why the gods wanted him here, but he felt he would soon know.

Shaking the snow off his shoulders, Brynjar fingered the blade of his axe, the carefully oiled and honed weapon glinting in the firelight he sat on the edge of. "I have little need of prayer these days Erak. Prayers are usually for those who need something or anger the gods. For those who speak to them regularly it is of little consequence." He knew the man. He'd known since he set foot off his longship and began the ascent. Brynjar had watched him enter the temple, and the one armed warrior close behind. The creature that followed the woman was still here, but a whisper from the raven that perched in the tree above him told him it was none of his concern.

Brynjar sighed. "Cold winters fast approach and leave slowly. This land is in the grip of giants." The sounds of fighting carried up to his ears and made him scowl. More important things were necessary now. Drunken brawls were wastes of everything that should be held dear.

"And mighty beasts it seems." Erak replied, spotting a great White tiger sitting calmly outside the Temple, suprised that he had missed it.

Turning back to Brynjar he said "The giants grip it, then relents and let it go. Only to try again. The day they succeed will be the day when we lose faith. Myself, I have other concerns." Taking a seat next to Brynjar on the wooden bench, Erak stared out into the darkness. "I trust that you have heard of how my brother Ragnar has become a Jarl in Northvegr? He was always restless, even as a lad. And I trust he will keep venturing west with renewed force, possibly he vies for the crown of Northvegr itself. Not only that, things are stirring in Scandinavia. Only a mere year ago, the late king Gudfred of Danmark was murdered. Horik Gudfredsson, his son, was forced to flee when King Harald Klak siezed Power. He is somewhere in Götaland as we speak, trying to rouse support."

Erak sighed and turned to Brynjar "I pray for that the sons of the North will not succumb to greed and spill eachother's blood. But right now, it looks like I will be sorely disappointed... And as for myself... With the great Charlemagne now gone, the West is in disarray. There has never been a better time to let the longships sail." He added the last part with a crooked smile.

"I hear many things Erak. And there is no need for the history lesson. I know the people." Brynjar scowled, most people were wary around him. Usually they were unsure of who he was, but his great bearing and wild appearance kept them at bay. The raven cawed again and Brynjar looked up. Pushing his hood back he shook out his white hair as he stood. The cold invigorated him and he dreaded having to go down into the village. He would do what the gods ordered, but he hated being amongst people, who only seemed to care about what was right in front of them. The gods had a greater plan.

"There is a son of Norvegr in the village. He arrived on a longship from Trondelag." Brynjar reached into a pouch hanging on his belt, clearing the snow from the hard ground with his other hand. Crouching down, the shield on his back slipping a little, he cast his hand over the space. Knuckle bones rolled on the hard ground, the etched runes on them flashing in the firelight from the brazier. Brynjar examined how they fell, then scooped them up and placed them back in the pouch. "Would that I had now what I had yesterday, find out what it was; mankind it mars, speech it hinders, yet speech it will inspire."

The bluntness of the man made Erak smile the small crooked smile again. It was a nice change from the many lickspittles that tends to flock around people with power. Though hearing about the man from Trondelag did not bother him, Trondelag was of little concern, far away, and no enemies of his. Erak would spend the night in Uppsala before setting sail towards Birca, he was assembling eighteen longships to pay a small visit to England. By the time he would return it shouldnt be long before all the preparations were finished. He was eager to see the land for himself, and what sorts of defences it would have against a larger force.

Erak rose aswell, turning his gaze upon Brynjar and saying "I have need of capable warriors, join me on my journey to the West, you will not regret it."

Moments after Einar pulled the woman from the fire, he was pulled into the fray once more as another man rushed forth and slammed him into a support beam. Einar shook his head clear and brought his elbow down, driving it into the man's shoulder blade and causing him to buckle before simply throwing him aside. Laughter intermingled with cries and roars of pain, all overlaid by hearty battle songs that all blended together to create a strange sort of merriment to an otherwise dangerous and violent, if sportingly natured tussle.

That good natured atmosphere quickly died away for Einar as his mismatched eyes settled on a blade withdrawing from the Little Upstart's companion.
Einar was at a moment of disbelief, rarely would one draw a blade during a drunken brawl under another Jarl's roof. The audacity and disrespect were astounding. To his credit however, Einar quickly recovered and crossed the gap before the man could strike again. He grabbed the other man's wrist in his vice-like grip and was satisfied to feel the bones cracking beneath and causing him to drop the knife. With a twist, he raised the man's arm over his head and delivered a crushing stomp to his right knee, dropping him before slamming his fist into his jaw.

By this time he was hoping the Jarl would put an end to this so the loathsome underhanded man's crime could be punished properly.

Einar looked to the young man and his friend, saying, "Get him some aid boy, before he bleeds out!"

Gunnar was on his feet and seething. This old bastard obviously had no idea of who he was. He took a step forwards but was stopped by an outstretched hand from Hemming. "Easy Gunnar. That's enough." Hemming was wincing as he moved, but the wound didn't look serious. Grimacing, he turned around to the warrior who had dealt with the knife-wielding viking. "You'll have to excuse Gunnar. Ever since his father sent him off to win his shield he's thrown himself headlong into every fight possible." Hemming smiled. "The trouble is, both the bastards have egos the size of Yggdrasil. Any insult is personal." Tearing off a strip from the bottom of his tunic, Hemming handed it to Gunnar, who stepped forwards and began tying it around the wound.

"Hold still you git." Gunnar seethed through his teeth as he pulled the make-shift bandage tight. He checked to see if it was holding back the bleeding, then turned to his own scrapes and bruises. One of his fingers was bent an odd way. He flinched as he touched it. Not broken thank Odin. Taking a deep breath Gunnar gripped the finger and popped it back into its socket, waving his hand after. Then he looked to the warrior, the one who had earlier thrown him out and then defeated Hemming's attacker. The man wasn't much to look at but had obviously seen some combat.

Under Hemming's watchful gaze, Gunnar decided that he could put honour aside for the sake of good humour, and pulled a couple of drinking horns off a nearby table. He thrust one towards the warrior and smiled. "Name's Gunnar. My father is the Jarl of Trondelag over in Norvegr. Hemming and I came to pay our respects here before heading off to visit the Danes. What brings you here?"

Brynjar stared long and hard at the king. He had felt something in his bones, only compounded by the words from the gods he had received, and the predictions of the knuckle bones. But he was yet to understand the meaning of the messages. He stayed silent and looked away into the darkness. His fingers traced the blade of his axe. "Harshly he clangs, on hard paths treading which he has fared before. Two mouths he has, and mightily kisses, and on gold alone he goes." The riddle would have to do. Brynjar was cast adrift on the will of the gods.

The wind howled and small flakes of snow began to fall, hissing when they hit the fire. A blizzard was coming.

The man interested Erak, yet he had no more time to spend here. Night had already fallen and he would be leaving tomorrow. After gazing up on the skies, Erak turned back to Brynjar with the reply "I will be setting sail for Birca on the morrow, seek me out in the morning or in the city, should you happen to have a change of heart." Erak added the last part with a crooked smile and started to walk down to the village. He was eager to have something warm to eat, as refreshing as the air was, it was still chilling.

As she waited for Vilhjalma, Kotah took in her surroundings. The men took notice of her, but since she made no moves towards them they did not attack. That was good, she did not want there to be bloodshed on this day, it was too important of a day. She waited while a man came out from the temple and asked another, one she had not noticed before, if he would join him in battle. Instead of a yes or no, the only answer he received was a riddle. The man left without answering and took his warriors with him.

She mulled it over after they had gone. "Why not go with them?" Her voice was an breathy echo coming from a mouth that did not move. "Or at least give a straight answer...What does a goldsmith's hammer have to do with joining a battle anyways?"

He did not look up, continuing to stroke his axe absent-mindedly. "The point is not the hammer itself. More so what the hammer represents." Stepping forward, Brynjar stood over the brazier Erak's men had vacated. The lines on his weathered face showed even more deeply in the shadowed orange light. "A goldsmith may make many things of beauty, of intricacy. None but him know the truth of the matter. Those who hold what he creates only see one thing, which they fight over mercilessly." Shrugging his shoulder, Brynjar pulled the shield off his back and leaned it against a post, slinging his daneaxe and warming his hands over the fire.

After a long moment, he turned to the creature, silouhetted and huge against the firelight. His shadow dancing on the snow covered ground. Fixing the creature with an icy gaze, he paused before speaking. "The one you follow. If I have read the signs properly, she is of some significance." Touching his hand to his forearm, then to his forehead, Brynjar closed his eyes a moment, as if searching memory. The messages of the gods had been loud of late, and he struggled to understand them all.

Trudging through shit and snow was most likely to be the least pleasant part of the entire winter, Gods bollocks was it cold. It probably wouldn't have been so bad, if he were further south, or if he indeed knew exactly where he was actually going. The fact of the matter was Kenver was lost, to make things worse, he was lost in a foreign nation, populated by a race of people who hated his, and who he couldn't stand the smell of, why hadn't he been smart enough to take one of his fathers ships and simply sail north? He paused once more to look up at the sky, which proved fruitless due to the thick grey curtain hanging above, he should of expected that honestly, but then again, the weather this far north was unpredictable and bizarre.

""Pascoe!" He called back, in his native Cornish. "How far do you recon we've come now then?" Pascoe was the only man who had decided to join him when he left his fathers lands, though the man was a bastard, and had no name himself he found him to be a good travelling companion, if a little slow.
"Considerin' we left Exeter ten days ago, no' tha' far I'd imagine." Kenver nodded and rolled his eyes before turning back to the path ahead, though he may have little idea of where they were, Kenver didn't need telling they hadn't come too far, even though he was only just beginning to grasp the sheer size of the Kingdom of Wessex, how could one man bend so many kings to his will to creat such a vast land?

He paused as he heard the sound of metal on metal, and strange screaming noises ahead. He picked up the pace, it seemed that some form of fight was in the works ahead. He picked his way through the trees- again he was surprised at just how many of the blasted things grew this far north. He wasn't really expecting to burst out of them the way he had, almost being knocked down by one of the fighting men, riding what he assumed were horses, though he had seen the trading Franks selling the odd horse here and there, he had never actually seen one being ridden into battle, let alone ridden one himself. He quickly backpedaled, colliding with Pascoe as he was coming up behind him.
"Woah! Watch where you are going, Pascoe!"
"Here! How was I 'possed to know that you would be jus' standin' there?"
"Never mind that, whats going on here?"

Looking into the center of the fight, it seemed to be two men on horseback, dressed in the battle-finery of kings that clashed together, it would seem one king had declared a battle for the lands of the other, pretty par for the course as far as Kenver was concerned. Both he and Pascoe would have been perfectly happy until he realised their talking their native language, as well his own rather well equipped form had drawn the attention of one of the horsemen, who presumably mistook them both for Danes and decided to charge the pair, sword raised.
"Oh for fucks sake." Kenver muttered before drawing his own blade and raising his oval shield high before letting loose a warcry. "Kernow et Fal! Fal et Kernow!"

Though he was a fair fighter, he had never fought a man on horseback before and he didn't expect the man to come at him at such speed, though he did manage to deflect the oncoming blade his own only managed to score a gash on the horsemans leg. Through some kind twist of fate, this was enough to cause the man to flinch and somehow hit his head on one of the low hanging branches, the crack was probably enough to have broken his skull open, or the painful fall the frozen ground has enough, but Pascoes spear made sure that the man wasn't going to get up again.

Looking back across the sprawl of chaos he could see one of the kings had unhorsed the other and was about to land the killing blow, luckily it seemed that nobody else had noticed them, which for most part worked well enough for him, after all he did have his sword drawn and bloody.

Tirelessly walking through the forests of Wessex in her constant search for any hint of a viking raiding party, Yrenhild kept a wary eye out for anyone that would attempt to do her harm, due to who she was, as she wandered the endless expanse of the forests. Slowing herself to a stop along a small riverbank south of the City of Winchester, she crouched down beside the faintly running water as she reached her cupped hands down into it, to catch some water within them, before lifting her cupped hands to her mouth to drink the freezing water as she thought about her next move, should her kinsmen never return to the land. Shaking the discouraging thoughts from her mind as she dropped the remaining water back into the river, she stood from her crouch and shook the remaining water from her bare hands as she looked into the sky overhead to see Vilde flying high above the trees of the forest to help keep watch for anyone that may have been approaching, her eyes falling from the sky shortly after to glance off to the north as wrapped her fur cloak around her body, to stay warm, and followed the bank of the river toward Winchester in thought of raiding the walled city only to rid the thoughts from her mind as she knew that she would be unable to successfully raid it on her own. Returning her gloves to her hands as she walked, she stared ahead to see several hunters in the forests, searching for food, despite the time of year, as she slowed herself to a stop before immediately moving behind a larger tree to hide as she withdrew her sword from her belt and her shield from her back to prepare for her possible battle, her mind drifting to prayers to the Gods as she hoped that battle was not to come in a time such as that.

With tribute paid and prayers made, the crippled berserker got to her feet with some assistance from her axe. Her remaining arm was stronger than ever but her core muscles were still adjusting to the missing weight on her left. A good thing it did not deminish her ability to slaughter opponents. "I will earn my way into Valhalla yet," she swore to the statue of the All-Father before turning her back to it.

As she made her way out of the temple she stopped to pay brief but sincere respects to the representations of Thor and Modi. She even blew a kiss at the statue of Freyja. If she somehow ended up in Fólkvangr rather than Valhalla, being loved by a goddess for eternity might not be so bad. Not so ideal as endless the feasts and battles of Valhalla though. All better options than an peaceful death in bed followed by the cold grip of Hel.

With hand and shoulder Vilhjalma pushed open the temple doors and let herself back out into the cold. The weather had taken a turn for the worse apparently. "Not a good sign."

The Tavern was a large, yet rather modest building. And in this winter night it looked even more appealing, with warm light coming out through small gaps between the wood. Erak opened the Tavern door, and with a gust of chilling wind he entered. Followed by his four Huscarls he looked around as he strode further in, in search of either an empty table or one where he could take a seat.

Drawn to a couple of men that looked like warriors, Erak judged the men closely with his gaze as he walked up to them, dismissing his Huscarls. They looked like they've had a rough day, signs of a fight was still evident on them. Although Everything had apparently calmed down, seeing as they were drinking and talking. "Did you lose an arguement with a bear or something?" Erak commented with a crooked smile as he walked in amongst them.

The tigress nodded as her charge exited the temple. The man seemed wiser than most, he seemed to understand the flow of fate and fortune however much he talked in pointless riddles. She would speak more to him, but now was not the time for that. She stood, her fur ruffling in the cold wind and approached the one armed warrior.

The crippled Berserker was ready to start down the temple's meager stairs when she stopped. She'd missed it at first, white fur blending in so well with the snow. She had no excuse for missing the dark stripes. Despite having no idea just what a tiger was she was still certain seeing such a creature was significant.

The creature stretched as if bowing and then moved backwards to rise onto its hind legs. Slowly it shrank, giant, clawed paws becoming frail looking hands. Powerful furred muscles became lithe, smooth skin. And the deadly muzzle became a smiling female face. She stood there for a moment, smiling as her white gown flapped gracefully in the wind. She closed her eyes and hummed enjoying the sensation of being in a human form. Then she opened her eyes, the same brilliant silver as the tiger's. "Hello, Vilhjama."

Even the blonde warrior knew that the supernatural was not something to mess with and a shapechanger knowing her name brought the trickster Loki immediately to mind. She took half a step back and changed her stance. "You have business with me, spirit?"

She nodded, seeming unpleased by Vilhjalma's change in stance. "I have had for a very long time. But now is when we finally talk, face to face."

"What could you possibly want from me, and why now?" She wasn't openly hostile but there was something to be said for being suspicious. Few would accuse Vilhjalma of having a smooth personality.

"The only thing I want is for you to fulfill your destiny and for me to be there when you do. And now? Times are changing, something big is coming. Now is the time for us to meet, there was no other way."

Hearing the spirit's purpose suddenly made her feel uneasy. Destiny. It was said that even the Gods could not escape or change their destiny, Ragnarok. What if her destiny was something she wanted no part in? She would have no hope of changing it. "Destiny you say...is mine so important?"

"I would not be here otherwise."

"Do you have a name?" She stood up straight once more, Dane's axe resting against her shoulder. No sense asking about this important destiny of hers. Oh it was tempting, but was it better knowing? Maybe one day she would regret not asking.

She nodded, smiling again. "I am called Kotah." She was happy to see her acceptance so readily. She had not known what to expect, so this was a pleasant surprise.

"Kotah, right." The woman sighed. "You already know my name. Introducing you to my traveling companion may be...tricky." Einar, still waiting for her down at the great hall. He was going to think she was mad.

"I can remain hidden, or in the form of a tiger, if you wish."

"That...is up to you, spirit. Kotah." She finally descended the stairs and passed by her newest companion, asking "Aren't you cold?" over her shoulder.

"Tigers do not mind the cold. But being like this...is somehow more freeing." She shrugs then turns back towards the old man. "It was nice talking to you."

With mysterious new spirit companion Kotah in tow (see post made under Dark Ages Europe) Vilhjalma made the journey down from the sacred temple back to the great hall she'd started out from. She wasn't sure where she and Einar would be traveling next. Off to sell their services no doubt but to whom? She felt a bit restless of late, itching for a new battle to test herself in.

Her footsteps slowed as she approached the entrance of the great hall, glancing back for the presence of Kotah as she shook snow from her cloak. After a deep breath and a weary sigh she entered.