He awoke to the soft lapping of waves and the smell of freshly burnt ash. Above him stretched the noonday sun. The familiar shape of a longboat beneath his back and the full suit of battle armor that weighed him down yielded no immediate clues, such was the life of a thane. Yet there were no voices. Sitting up, he viewed the deserted deck.
Well, not entirely deserted, gold and jewels and decorated arms and armor filled the bottom of the boat. This was a burial ship, but where was the body, he wondered. Someone important must have died. Perhaps in the battle at the great mound? That was yesterday, was it not? He vaguely recalled leading a charge up the hill to bash down the shields and throw aside the spears of those hated enemies of his. He stood glorious at the top, unscathed from battle and victorious, holding the standard in one hand and the enemy standard bearer in the other. In the growing dusk, the cheers of his people in recognition sounded from up below him. He was a war hero. And then there was that sharp prick in his chest.
He looked down, and a shiny fish dripping red water had pulled itself from the emblem on his chest. Turning, a ragged, blood strewn warrior held the spear haft, only able to pull himself up on his knees with the support it gave him. Then darkness fell.
Back in the boat, he looked around. No land in sight, just the sun up above and that ash-scented burial ship. Taking his armor off, he felt his back and his chest, only able to feel the scars of his battles, plus one more. Was he off to the ancient halls of brave warriors, or had the guiding hand lost his boat in the process? A closer inspection of the ship was all he could do to while away the time. There was the sword of the king, and a set of his decorative armor. Both were silver with fish motifs on the scabbard and the chest-plate. Small sapphires glinting blue in the light decorated the scales. That was a torque of his cousin, famed in battle as much as he, before the great mound. It was only iron with a plainer motif, but it held near as much weight as any of the other pieces set around the ship. Some he did not recognize, but could see the value in them, some he remembered on the corpses of his enemies, picking out the scratches his blade had brought down across them. The wooden planks of the ship were all grey with a faint trace of soot, almost as if the burning has started but stopped suddenly, something only a mighty wave could have done. Yet here were all the ship's cargo attesting to the calmness of their voyage so far, wherever he was headed.
As his curiosity changed to boredom, he had the thought that it was rather inconvenient that no food or water appeared to be packed for these trips, for a hunger was about to set in, and his thirst for ale was never-ending. That was it, he was drunk on a boat in the ocean with sunstroke. It certainly fit better than some hero's death from a backstabbing coward. The treasure must be a hallucination. If he could find the oars from under them, he might be able to row back to the mead hall and make up a story of fighting sea snakes to cover for his idiocy.
He may match his cousin in battle, but most of his renown was from stories like that, plausible, though if he had been a worse teller of tales he would assuredly have been found out by now. It was a bit unfair, really. He was expected to behave like a supremely confident warrior who had wrestled down a giant boar, only yo have it stolen by the wolves, to have dived from the tops of cliffs to punch sea serpents in the head, or to have snuck into the enemy camp to steal a kiss from the lips of the queen before sneaking back out. Like any other sane man, he would never do such things, though the last one admittedly have a bit more ale fueled truth than the rest.
Too much clutter filled the belly of the boat, so he started throwing some over the side, the less impressive hallucinations. If his folly had conjured up tricks with his eyes, he may as well get the benefit of his pretty dreams while they lasted. Eventually he found his prize, two long oars buried deep down at the sides. Looking up he spied the sun's descent and pointed his eyes to it. Using a particularly stout shield as a seat, he began to row.
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