Epilogue

 

Winter had come early to Stavanger, but the sea had still not frozen. It would happen soon though. The boat swayed and creaked under the weight of the frost and ice that had formed on its lines and mast. People had gathered around the shore and its long wooden plank piers to watch the mysterious sailboat come in.

The townspeople had fought off raiders from further north along the coast earlier in the year, but the pirates attacked with multiple wooden longboats. Nothing like this white shining vessel.

As the boat came closer to shore, people cringed back from the man standing on the bow. He was a brute, probably two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle, with a frost encrusted beard that fell halfway down his broad chest. He wore a thick bandage over one half of his head, concealing his eye, and his hands were covered in thick gloves.

He wore black leather over his broad chest and legs, causing him at once to resemble both a pirate and a nightmare version of Odin himself. But the man’s hands stayed at his hips, and he showed no sign of emotion on his face. He did not look angry, even though his appearance was enough to send some of the villagers running.

The sails lowered and the woman who had taken them down, also dressed in black leather, stepped up by the man’s side as the boat slid against the pier. Her long blonde hair had been braided, and her face was covered with red makeup like the wings of a bird. Red-lensed goggles covered her eyes.

She leapt off the boat onto the creaky pier, and marched toward the pebbled beach. The man followed her, and a moment later a younger woman—maybe sixteen, jumped onto the pier and walked after the big man. She was wrapped in layers of fabrics, and carried a sword strapped across her back.

People stepped back or shied away as the woman in the lead of the strange parade approached.

 

 

Val gave them no notice as she walked past.

She went straight to the Jarl’s longhall and found Halvard seated on the piggish man’s chair. He stood at once, dropping a book from his hand, shock and delight vying for supremacy on his face. Val understood that in her absence, the Jarl had died and Halvard had taken over.

“Val,” he said, his voice shaky. “You made it back. I never heard back from Troben; I never knew if you made it.”

“We will have time to tell you about it later, but first, I want you to meet your ‘genetic material.’”

Agnes stepped up next to Val, the candlelight from Halvard’s reading candlestick flickering over her pretty face.

Val strode forward toward the old man, and he recoiled at the threat she exuded.

“I... I...”

She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close. Hiking one thumb over her shoulder at Ulrik, who had pulled the heavy metal disc from his pack and held it up, she shouted in Halvard’s face. “I want to know, just what the hell that thing is, and why so many had to die for it.”

The man swallowed with an audible clicking noise, and said “I will show you.”

 

 

The four of them rode on horseback, for most of an hour, north of Stavanger’s coast. It was in a direction Val had never traveled. They rode in silence, with Ulrik once again bringing the metal disc in his pack, and Agnes between the two of them on her somewhat smaller pony.

The natural coastline gave way to an industrial one, with shattered buildings and ruptured concrete docks, though many were either in good shape or had been repaired.

A white metal building loomed ahead of them, similar to the warehouse in Rotterdam, but immense. The building was half a mile long, four hundred feet wide, and over three hundred feet tall. The gargantuan white rectangular structure dwarfed everything she had seen on her epic journey to the south.

Halvard was talking. “It was essential that we get her blood—her living blood—to a genetic research facility, so we can isolate the genes that make her—”

“What in the name of Odin’s tick-infested sack is that thing?” Val said, pointing.

In the distance, two men armed with longswords guarded a massive white wall descending into the water. They stood several hundred feet apart, one on each side. Halvard let loose a shrill whistle and swirled his hand in the air. As he did so, the men leapt to attention and then reached for handles on large wheels. They started cranking the wheels quickly, and a dark vertical slit appeared up the center of the gargantuan wall. Two enormous doors separated.

“I would perform the work myself, here, you understand, but I do not have the technical knowledge. Just as I kept in contact with Troben using the carrier pigeons, there is another scientist who is far better versed in genetics than I am. He is Agnes’s next destination, and if you would be so brave, yours as well.”

Halvard dismounted from his steed and began walking toward the ever widening doors. The others followed as something vast and blue came into view inside the gigantic building.

Val walked closer, listening to the old man prattle on, as the doors widened and she took in an amazing sight. “For a journey such as the one I am proposing now, we needed something large. Something that could withstand whatever was thrown at it. The piece you brought back from Rotterdam was the only thing we could not repair or machine for ourselves. The tolerances were too exacting. We have been working on this for many, many years. We fixed the parts and cleaned her up, we got an oil refinery working again, and made the diesel fuel for her. But the part you retrieved was just too finely engineered. And it is crucial for the engine.”

Finally, they reached the edge of the inlet and stared up at the colossus before them.

It was the bow of a boat.

The hull was sky blue from a tapered point to where just a hint of red paint was visible under the gently lapping dark green liquid. Its broad deck flared out so wide it looked like the boat should topple over.

“The Maersk Triple E class. Formerly the Marikja, the last vessel like it the company ever made before the great cataclysm. They only ever produced twenty-five of the ships, and they were the largest ever built. This one was waiting here for a part, which was on its way from the Netherlands, when the entire world fell apart. In case you ever returned, we renamed her.”

Painted on the front of the vessel were downward angled wings in dark red, exactly like those Val painted on her face. On the side of the massive boat, which looked to fill the entire majestic hangar, was the name Sleipnir. The name of Odin’s eight-legged horse, the best of all vehicles.

Val turned to see the wonder on Ulrik’s face, and pure joy on Agnes’s face. She looked back at Halvard, whose tired eyes were seeking some kind of forgiveness from her, beseeching her to understand that it was all for a good cause. She understood.

“Where is it we need to go?” she asked the old man.

“Across the great ocean,” he said. “To follow in the path of your ancestors. Beyond Iceland and Greenland. To the shores of what was once known as the New World. To Vinland. To America.”

Val walked away from the man, further toward the immense boat, the ship so impossibly huge she could barely take it all in at once.

She turned to him, showing a wicked smile. “We are going to need some more men. A lot more men.”