Crossing Paths

How it begins.

A chilly breeze entered through a windowless hole, then another. Breeze by breeze the room turned colder, until even its walls were imbued with all the frosty splendor of night you could ever imagine. It circulated silently in the room, spinning dust in small whirlwinds that finally dissipated into piles, and it passed under and over the only furniture that was left in there - the bed. Soon all of the dust was neatly formed into small piles here and there, a fine mess, really, and Nikolaos was freezing in his sleep. As though sensing this(he probably did) he twitched on the bed, an unrecognizable shape that could've been taken for a heap of clothes if not for his large frame, broad shoulders and whatnot. He also had a somewhat dizzy way of murmuring to himself whenever the wind brushed his naked back.

                             Some time had passed from when he had gone to sleep. He had had trouble doing that, in fact. His family, having finally gathered enough money, was about to leave on the next morning. To Constantinople. The capital.

                             That wouldn't change much. If he would ever be given a chance to choose his profession, it would be a priest - a man of faith. Not that he would be given a chance, of course. The odds of that happening were about the same as of discovering a hidden treasure underneath their house. That would be about one in a... very high number. He only knew them to twenty-six.

                             Everything - except the people - had already been packed ready for departure.

                             Nikolaos slowly rolled over on the bed. He could barely feel his legs. He wondered whether his feet would actually follow his orders; frightened by this idea, he moved his legs as if to test their strength. They moved all fine.

                             It surprised him that his feet were cold when he lifted them. They were also extremely tense.

Nikolaos yelped and fell, trying to shake the cramp off his leg. Father had said that it was a sign of God's displeasure.

                             He couldn't see anything in the darkness, of course. Nikolaos quenched the thought of stretching his neck out of the window to wrap his head in the chilly night air - that would've completely ruined his dreams for the next few hours, and he needed his strength for today's work - and concentrated on fixing the window again. He knew that it was only a temporary solution, but if it allowed him to sleep through the remainder of the night, that was enough reason to do it - they were moving out today, anyway. The whole window could've needed some serious fixing, but the main problem about it were its hinges, always creaking and breaking suddenly. Once it had broken during his sleep and fell on his chest, waking him up with a scream. He made himself look at the bloody thing, concentrate on it as though his hands were a sword and the hinges his opponent. It couldn't take that long.

                             Usually it took him a minute or two to fix the thing, but tonight the fixing seemed to stretch on forever. As he was still working on the hinges, the sun was beginning to rise on the horizon, slowly illuminating the rooftops - those that were topped with metal or smooth stone - and the water began to ripple just a few hundred feet from the walls. Nikolaos could see the town militia patrolling them lazily. There was never anything to see there. Those on wall patrol were considered lucky for not having to fight three battles with burglars and cutpurses every day. He looked at the window again. The hinges looked absolutely and unquestionably broken. Could he even fix them?

                             Weariness began to creep into him as slowly his attempts at fixing the hinges became worse, slower and less heartened by the moments. Finally he sat down on his bed, placing the broken frame beside him. His last morning in his own room; the sun was beginning to rise in the horizon.

                             Abruptly the door of his room opened with a loud bang, revealing a tall, hairy figure looming against the light that suddenly seeped in the room. Nikolaos yelped and moved a hand to cover his eyes, but before he could, the figure suddenly stepped out of the doorway and into the room proper. Damianus cast a quizzical look upon his brother, clearly wondering what had gone into Nikolaos. According to his face, their father had sent him to gather the rest of the family together. Nikolaos cursed silently as he stood up and followed Damianus, earning a quizzical look from his younger brother who bore more facial hair than Nikolaos could ever hope for despite being the older of the two; he just frowned at Damianus. He just wanted to go away, now.

                             As they arrived in the kitchen, Nikolaos saw that the rest were already gathered there, father all heated up giving them his speech. Just how long had Damianus taken in bringing him here? "...and you all know that today's a big day. Pack your things - time doesn't wait for you to catch up," Grigorios finished wearily, his eagerness still managing to shine through that tired voice. That was one of the sayings he loved to use at every occasion possible, of course. Everything he said seemed to consist of only those phrases he knew well. That was like saying water was moist. Nikolaos wasn't nearly as eager as his father - he was angry enough to more than balance the scales - but he showed an excited face. Father didn't like his ever-changing moods. He hadn't slept more than half the night, though, and it just felt wrong: why should he be punished for not being able to sleep? "Stop being sullen, boy, and go fetch what you need before we leave," his father said in tones that warned him of arguing back. Nikolaos could see no way to disobey, so he just turned and went to fetch his belongings.

                             Nikolaos staggered into his small room with a weary sigh. He rolled his eyes across the empty walls, taking one last good look at it before leaving it for a long time; he didn't want to, really, but it had been his home for years. He could still remember the time he kicked a hole in the wall because a particularly large ant had infested the spot. Father had been furious, of course. He earned himself a spanking or two for that, but now he remembered the moment with humor. Even after all these years, he still thought it was funny.

                             The only real furniture he had were his rock-hard bed on one corner, a slender table at another and an untrustworthy stool right next to it. He ate breakfast on the table, sometimes - he could still see bread crumbs from yesterday littering it - but since he wouldn't see them again in a long time, he could as well bid them farewell by remembering. That bread he had eaten last morning had been good bread, home-baked, he remembered. He could still almost smell its scent in his nostrils, but knew still that it was just that; his imagination. He began to gather the few belongings he had; his sandals, clothes and a few pieces from a chess game - he had a knight and two pawns, bought from the local merchant Alexios - and stumbled back to the kitchen. Mother welcomed him with a smile as he set his bundle to a corner, but his father and brother were nowhere to be seen. Loud noises came from their rooms.

                             The sun was creeping up too quickly for comfort, much quicker than it should've in any case, and soon began casting its slender fingers through the windows. Nikolaos shifted slightly so that he stood in the shade - he was used to sunlight, but didn't like it very much - and waited patiently for Damianus and his father, Grigorios, to return. It wouldn't take more than perhaps an hour to ready up.

 

                             High Chief Ingvar Baard eyed the horizon before him with his keen, deep-set eyes, a slight frown of concentration marring his aged face. He was well in his late thirties, a veteran of many battles, and the current High Chief of the nearest víkingr; often people thought him a raider, but he was one of the few amongst his kin that had values other than wealth. An unruly brown beard covered his chin entirely, hiding his expression under that thick mass of hair, and the sun glimmered faintly from his brand-new mail shirt; those deep-set eyes seemed to hide a different man entirely, an older person, as though that person was just barely visible through his mask of youth. Truth be told, there were streaks of grey hair around his temples, currently fully visible to anyone looking. That meant Joakim.

                             "Weather, Joakim?," the veteran asked quietly. The man standing slumped behind him gave no expression at all, but his voice somewhat reminded him of a bear he had once encountered. Bears were ruthless. "It will be good, as I said just a moment ago. High Chief." he said, adding the title almost as an afterthought; it was clear that the man did not hold him in the respect he thought he deserved. He knew that Joakim was ambitious, but he was also intelligent. There was a large gap between "wisely ambitious" and "foolishly ambitious" - the former could see that there were consequences to certain actions, and the latter did not. Joakim was of the first sort. They often came to blows over leading the troops, of course, but today's agenda promised something far more important than splitting hairs. "Are the boats ready?," he asked, his tone growing quieter and softer. Joakim had better answer that without any questions. "They will be in a matter of moments, High Chief," the man answered, stroking his beard gently with two deft fingers. Ingvaar could hear the alarm in his voice; good. That left him thinking what he had done to upset him. He was his personal advisor and Second Captain, but he had never dropped the habit of questioning almost every one of his orders. He could allow him to complain now and then, but his advisor had soon noticed that where obedience was needed, he tolerated no complaints. "Good. Make sure that the víkingr are ready." Joakim nodded curtly before striding off to see to the warriors. His boat was the largest, of course, and housed nearly over fifty of his best warriors: they were to be his honor guard. There were five other large boats on sight, surrounding his own in a somewhat fuzzy line-formation. The rest weren't as large as his, of course, but each of them still housed nearly forty of his víkingr. He had taken it as a habit to call them his víkingr, now, although they were dedicated only to raiding. He was just another leader to them. As much as he could've wanted them to like his leadership, they wouldn't show it: that was their way.

Abruptly he saw land. Or rather, a village, surrounded by low wooden walls. As the waves began to roll slightly harder, he began to hear the oh-so-familiar sound of men preparing themselves for battle. It sang to him, called to him, but he knew that his duty was to lead them into success. And to succeed, a raid was necessary.

 

 

                             The seas rolled serenely in the sunlight, a rough, cold wind caressing the small fishing hut's walls that normally housed several fishers, but was now empty: you rarely went fishing this early. A lone fisherman in his early twenties was working furiously on a large piece of sail cloth, barely even looking anywhere else than at the victim of his repairing: he wanted to be home soon, and was growing restless. He saw little else than that sailcloth, but he noticed from the corner of his eye how the sun had began to rise into the sky, slowly illuminating everything. The seas began to ripple with the sunlight.

                             He felt his daily responsibility, light yet ominous, on his muscular shoulders - his family needed food. The fish pools had dwindled lately, oddly, leaving many in the village hungry - well, not the fishers - but many still. Antonius - the fisherman - frowned at the image of hungry citizens. He thought it unfair for so many to be left hungry, left to complain and do nothing else. But he had his family, and that was enough for him. Actually, if it were not for his wife, he could've ended up doing something much more...grand. Grander than becoming a fisherman, at least; perhaps he could've even traveled to Constantinople one day.

                             Suddenly Antonius felt the wind brushing his cheeks; a cold, refreshing breeze from the mountains that reminded him of the flowers of his youth. He ceased from his work to look around, but nothing moved on the beaches; there weren't even any noises that he could hear except the sound of water rolling back and forth on the sand, accompanied by the wind howling faintly in the distance. Suddenly he noticed that his fingers were freezing; odd, that. It was summer, after all. Then he noticed that the air had gone from cold and refreshing to freezing. Even more weird, of course. Antonius had but a moment's warning before a great breeze stirred, seemingly from nowhere, and ripped the sail cloth from his freezing hands. It began to carry it towards the ocean.

                             The fisher could only sit and watch as the large, unfinished sail began to spiral in the air, spinning ever faster as it landed at least a hundred paces to the open sea. His eyes followed it until the sun forced him to blink. A blink took only a very short time to complete, but that sail cloth had vanished completely from sight. No, there it was again, rolling on the waves. Something else rolled on the waves, too, but much farther away, clearly visible against the sun. He raised his gaze a tad, shadowing his eyes with his both hands as he goggled at the...things that approached him with great speed. Some of them were dragons, some like great water-serpents, but each one of the creatures seemed different from one another; that seemed to be all the proof he needed. The fisherman hurriedly gathered some of his belongings from the ground, eyeing the dragons and the serpents warily, and then began to run harder than he ever had towards the safety of his walled home.

 

Author's Note

Is it enjoyable to read? A suitable beginning for a story?