Colum's Viking Captivity, part 3 - a series of well-researched gay erotic short stories - NSFW!

OFF THE COAST OF NORTHUMBRIA, 807 A.D.

For once, Colum thought, the enemy was ready for them. The weather hadn’t helped the Vikings; the seas had resisted their plan to land at dawn, and the coast was clear of fog. They had crept up the river as stealthily as they could, but the element of surprise had been lost. The will of the gods, he shrugged, putting his back to the oars with the rest of the raiders. Not that he believed in the Viking gods any more than the Christian one, but it made as much sense as any other explanation. 

The monastery had a bell tower, and a monk posted on the lookout for dawn raiders – Vikings almost always came at dawn, striking when the world was at its most peaceful and unwary. The word had spread across the isles, from the mainland to Shetland, the Orkneys, Ireland, the Isle of Man…get up early if you want to live, get up early and be on the watch.

He could hear the bell ringing the alarm, carried across the clear seas over the sigh of the ocean and the shriek of the gulls. But this time, armed men came pouring out of the gates – well-armed men, he saw, as the ship drew nearer to the shore, not locals pressed into service. Professionals.

He looked at Viggo, standing in the prow of the ship, seeing what Colum and all the others were seeing. The dragon’s head was mounted on the prow of the ship – fair warning that they had come to take what was theirs by right of arms. And yet Colum knew from experience that as they drew closer, the look on Viggo’s face would be far more fearsome to the men on the beach than the awful wooden beast could ever be. 

In smooth, synchronized movements, the oars came up, and the ship was beached. The brightly colored Viking shields, hung on the outside of the ship as much for display as for defense, were all lifted as one, and strapped on. The men jumped out of the ship and slogged through the knee-deep water to the shore. 

Colum stayed on board the ship with the other slaves, excluded, forbidden from battle. It frustrated him no end to see his beloved Viggo draw his sword and begin to pound it on his shield, all of the men following suit, a dreadful sound to make the enemy’s bowels quiver. 

I can fight! he shouted silently. But no slave could stand with warriors in a shield wall. It was unthinkable. Colum had been freed and had fought a man to the death to save his friend, true – but for the chance to do so, he had returned to Viggo’s household as a thrall once more. 

The Vikings put up the shield wall, the left side of each man’s shield overlapping the right side of the next man’s. This allowed them to thrust spears or swords with their right hand without losing protection. It was like a wall of death that crushed everything in its path, like the path of the lava that destroyed Pompeii. 

But these were King’s men in front of them, not peasants. Colum swallowed hard as the men met in battle, the Vikings bellowing no louder than the Northumbrians. The clash of arms was beautiful and terrible to behold, and Colum found himself torn between anxiously watching Viggo and observing the battle as a whole. As a warrior he wanted to see the progress of the whole and yet, as a lover, he cared only for his master. 

“Swine head!” the enemy’s leader shouted, and his men suddenly backed up and formed a wedge, a triangle that would meet the shield wall and knock a hole in it. The Vikings stiffened but the enemy knew what they were doing – they had tested the wall, and had found the weakest warriors, and now formed their wedge to break the wall at that point.

The Vikings’ wall bent back like a bow, but even the strongest bow could snap with enough pressure. Colum saw a man fall, clutching his severed tendon, the Northumbrians using Viking tactics – sweeping down under the shield wall with their blades, attacking the feet. Wise men put strips of iron in their boots to keep this from happening, but that was no defense against sharp thrusts. 

Colum could see that the wall was going to break. Viggo shouted at the men to tighten up, moved himself down the line to reinforce the weak spot. But it wouldn’t hold; the enemy was too strong, too many, they were too good...

“To hell with this,” Colum said, grabbing a long Dane axe, as tall as he was himself, and jumping out of the ship. He raced up the shore, up to Viggo’s side in the shield wall. With his own shout, he gave a warrior’s cry as he brought the axe down over the line, hooking on the top of an enemy shield. “Spear!” he shouted as the shield was lowered by the force of his attack. The man to his left, Gagi, saw the opening and didn’t hesitate. The enemy screamed as the spear spiked his guts.

Colum raised the axe again and brought it down on a man’s helmet. His back and arms had grown even stronger over his time with the Vikings, and he drew the axe back, and again he hooked and pulled down a shield with the edge of the blade. This time it was Viggo’s sword that plunged through the hole. 

“The slave!” Viggo shouted. “The slave fights! Will you do less than the slave?”

“NO!” the others shouted. “NO!” 

And the tide turned, as battles will when one side gains heart and the other loses it. 

“To my right,” Viggo commanded Colum, and he obeyed. Then it was as if Viggo, Colum, and the man on Colum’s right, Klaufi, were one – Klaufi meant “the clumsy one,” and he may have been elsewhere, but not on the battlefield. When Colum’s axe came down, they were ready when the man whose shield, or skull, it battered was jarred for even a moment. Klaufi’s shield lurched forward, completing the opening in the enemy’s line by shoving the stunned man’s shield backwards, then Viggo thrust with his long sword, bringing death again and again.

Soon the enemy’s line broke, and men began to run away. Some of the younger, faster Vikings chased them down and killed them, but most of them now turned their attention to the monastery.

Viggo halted them at the gate. “You know the rule.” His tone brooked no dissent.

The men nodded. The killing was over for the day, unless there was resistance inside.

Colum stepped forward and shouted up at the wall in Gaelic. “Open the gates, brothers. Open them peacefully and you will not be harmed. I swear it.”

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

A pause. “You are the heretic! The one who betrayed Iona to the pagans! Who opened the gates to them and drank your brothers’ blood with them!”

Colum’s eyes widened. This was the story that was told about him? He who had been the only one to step forth to defend Iona, crudely armed with what was at hand, and had been knocked on the head for it? 

“Lies. Lies!”

“Swear on your soul that these are lies. Oh, that’s right!” The voice mocked. “Your soul is damned!”

Colum’s face darkened. “We are coming through this gate. Do not resist and you will not be harmed. These men will swear it on their gods.”

“You may as well swear on the devil!”

Colum turned to Viggo, whose face was contorted with the effort of holding back his laughter. Then it softened, as he saw the agony on Colum’s face, the pain of what the Church was doing to his reputation. Then it hardened again, as he resolved to make them all pay for what they had done to his beloved slave. 

And more, what they had done to a brave man’s reputation – the only man who had stood against him at Iona, stood alone against a raiding party of Vikings in a makeshift helmet with a makeshift sword, defying him, all to try and save the men he was now accused of helping to kill.

“No,” Colum said. “Please. The truth will out. In time.”

Viggo nodded. “The battering ram,” he said, and six men dashed back to the ship to get it. 

The gate’s ability to keep the world out was more symbolic than practical, and was down in a minute. Inside, it was hard to say who was more frenzied, the chickens clucking furiously around the yard or the monks comically attempting to hide in barrels or under straw. 

The raiders had swords drawn as they approached the building where the treasure lay, but only in the event that someone got any ideas about attacking. Nobody did.

The treasure was poorly hidden under a false floor, and they made short work of packing it up. 

“What is this?” Gagi asked, puzzling over an ornate silver box with nothing in it but a feather.

Colum laughed. “That, my lord, is a feather from the dove released by Noah, at the end of the flood that God sent to punish the world.”

Gagi frowned. “It looks fresh to me.”

“It probably is, lord. Though the monks would tell you that’s because it’s holy.”

Gagi shrugged, dropping the feather to the floor as he stuffed the box into a bag. 

Colum hoisted two heavy bags, one over each shoulder, his role that of slave again. Nobody had said a word about his actions at the shield wall, and he expected none. He had done what needed doing – wasn’t that what slaves did?

He was last out of the gates. By the time the Vikings had cleared out, the monks had started to come out of hiding, amazed at the Lord’s good grace in sparing them. They gathered in the courtyard to pray and sing His Praises.

Not the Lord’s will, Colum thought, but mine. He turned back to the kneeling monks, who stopped their prayers to look at him in fear.

“Remember this day. Remember that Colum of Clonmacnoise spared your lives. Think on that next time you hear lies about me. Let the world know of barbarian mercy.”

He dug a silver chain out of the bag, and threw it on the ground. “To pay for a new gate.”

He struggled with the bags, which seemed to get heavier with each step down to the beach. He stopped to catch his breath, bent over, hands on knees. The battle fever that had carried him this far suddenly left him, and he was spent. He couldn’t take another step. He just had to rest…

Then there were men on either side of him, two who took the bags, two who helped him to his feet – Gagi and Klaufi, whom he had fought with in the shield wall. Warriors, helping a slave! What had the world come to?

“Come, brother,” Gagi said, and Colum’s eyes widened. 

He looked up to see the other warriors watching. One of them began to clap his sword against his shield. Then another, and then another. He looked to Viggo, whose face was impassive but whose eyes were…Colum’s insides warmed at the look of pride on his lover’s face.

Gagi and Klaufi took him to Viggo. “Viggo,” Gagi said, “this man is no thrall. He saved the day today. You know it, I know it, we all know it.”

Viggo nodded. “Pack the ship.” He smiled at Colum. “When we get home, we will perform the ritual.”

The men roared their assent, gathering around Colum, clapping him on the back. A flagon was produced, and Colum was made to drink it all as the men cheered. 

The words of Dýrfinna, the sorceress, came back to him: Free, slave, free, slave, free. The circle was complete.

The return to Birka was the happiest day of Colum’s life. The sails were full of wind, and there was no need to row until they reached the harbor, so until then he was free to stand near the prow and feel the sun and sea spray on his face. The dragon head had now been removed from the prow, as they were headed home and it wasn’t right to frighten the native spirits with it.

Free. The word was like honey on his tongue. He turned to look at Viggo, who was already busy inventorying the monastery’s loot. It never ceased to amaze Colum, how many people could live in hunger, in filth, in cold, while money that could be spent on…food, clothing, anything, everything, was instead locked up in extravagant chalices, surplices, rings, and crosiers. 

And there was more today than just the garden-variety ecclesiastical loot, since monasteries were like banks for the wealthy people in the surrounding area, a safe place (barring Vikings) to park their money – for a fee of course. 

And some of it was his now, his share as a fellow raider, a fellow warrior. Add that to what he had won by defeating Harald, and he was a rich man. Colum shook his head at the thought, a poor boy from a family of seven children, sent off to a monastery because of his gift with words and doomed to spend the rest of his life there, behind walls, never experiencing love, or happiness…

Viggo, he thought with a pang. If I am not your slave any more, are we still lovers? It was one thing, he knew, for the Vikings to have their way with slaves, male or female. Slaves were nothing, and fucking them was nothing. No man was unmanned by sticking his cock in his property. 

When they landed, he started to help unload as he always had, but Viggo’s hand on his shoulder stayed him. 

“No. Not anymore,” he said with a warm smile that turned Colum’s guts to butter.

Colum smiled back. “No, my lord,” he answered, automatically appending the honor now.

And it warmed him even more that Viggo didn’t correct him when he said it. Perhaps, he thought, it wasn’t over after all.

The church propaganda had made it sound as if the Vikings had no culture, no law, no ritual. But that was far from true, Colum knew now. Especially as he stood in Viggo’s hall that night, all his treasure piled on a table in front of him like a dragon’s hoard – enough to buy his own hall. Viggo could have kept all of Harald’s wealth when Colum killed the man to save his friend Niall – it was his by right as Colum was his slave – but he had set it aside, kept it in trust until the day Colum was a free man and could take possession.

Now, with the help of Einar, his friend Niall’s former master, he divided the treasure into two equally valuable heaps, both of them taking breaks to drink from the flagons of ale the other warriors kept refilling. This was the frelsis-öl, literally a “free-neck-ale,” the freedom feast that was held when a man left thralldom and became a full member of the community. And since this was a rarity, men had come for it from miles around. Especially since Colum was footing the bill for the wine, mead, ale, and plenteous food. 

Viggo was not present yet, as the ritual prescribed. Colum raised his hand for silence.

“I, Colum of Clonmacnoise, hereby announce my desire to be freed. Before me is the evidence that I have earned the price.” Thunderous approval greeted that, as his pile was more than respectable in size. 

He placed silver on the scale on the table until the six ounce counterweight balanced the two plates. Six men stood there with him to verify the weight was true. 

“The Freedmen’s ounces,” Einar declared, to more roaring and banging of mugs on tables.

Colum walked to the doors of the hall, his heart racing. Behind them, Viggo stood, awaiting his invitation. He opened them and looked his master, his lover, in the eyes. 

“My lord, I hold this freedom feast in your honor, and beg you to be my guest.”

Viggo nodded like the prince he was. “It would be my honor.” 

Colum accompanied him to the table. “The first payment,” he said, handing Viggo the six ounces of silver. “And the rest,” he added, indicating the first pile. Viggo’s eyebrow went up – perhaps even he hadn’t know how wealthy Harald had grown, underpaying warriors for a decade or more. 

Viggo nodded. “I accept. Bring the sheep.”

The sheep was led in, and the slave collar that Colum had worn was removed from his neck and laid across the sheep’s. Viggo handed Colum a sword – Bǫlkr, “The Divider,” Viggo’s own sword.

“Forgive me,” Colum said to the oblivious sheep. But then he only touched the back of its neck with the sword, symbolically. Consternation arose in the room – he was supposed to sever the link to his past as a slave by cutting its head off. “And I free you, as I have been freed.” 

He looked at Viggo, unabashed, unashamed of the love in his eyes and what anyone might think of it. “And I save your life, as mine has been saved by my master.”

Silence as men thought on this. Their first reaction was to frown, to fear the wrath of the gods. The sacrifice must be made! It was tradition! 

“Don’t fear,” he said. “I have Dýrfinna’s word on this.” That was a lie, but he knew the witching woman well enough that she would support his statement. She claimed to know the will of the gods, and claimed that Colum had a role to play in their schemes…and so he would play the role the only way he knew how.

At that, there were some murmurs of agreement, approval, and Colum heaved a sigh of relief. He had not wanted to kill the sheep. Funny, that he’d killed men in battle and felt less, but then, men went to war and took their chances. This lucky sheep would not be slaughtered, but would live a long and happy life as Colum’s first livestock.

Viggo nodded and took his place in the seat of honor at the first table. “Come, my slave, and serve me for the last time.”

And that was it, Colum thought, as he spent the rest of the feast pouring the wine for Viggo, refilling his plate, less than an equal for the last time. What will happen now, will he still…

Finally Viggo rose. “Come with me,” he said to Colum. The men made jokes but they were bawdy, not insulting, and Colum blushed. They must know that we were going to…do it. One final time? He wondered. Would this be the end, the last time he’d feel Viggo’s hands on his body, Viggo deep inside him? Was it forbidden now, unthinkable with a freedman?

Viggo led him to the stables, where Colum’s bed was – had been. He went into Colum’s stall and turned around to meet his eyes, and there was a command in them that told Colum what to do next. He went to his knees and reached for the strings to Viggo’s breeches, hands shaking. The pants dropped, and Viggo’s manhood was half swollen already. 

It was the work of moments for Colum to put his mouth on it and bring it to its full height. Viggo sighed, groaned, put his hands on Colum’s head to steady it. Gently he milked himself with Colum’s head, a little farther into it with each stroke, pushing the fat tip into his lover’s throat, so well-used to it now that it opened with ease. 

The now-familiar taste of Viggo’s first juices on his tongue was as intoxicating as the milk of the poppy, and every vein and curve of his cock had been memorized, adored and worshipped more each time.

Colum reached up to run his hands under Viggo’s tunic, to feel the sharp V of his hips, the ripples of his stomach muscles. Viggo accommodated him by taking the tunic off, revealing his long lean form in all its glory. Colum stroked the crevices and channels cut into his fatless body, and the ridges and bumps of his scars, even more exciting. He thought of Viggo in battle, his wild war cries, the wounds he received serving only to inflame him more…Colum let a fingernail scratch Viggo’s chest, nothing to draw blood, only enough to…

Viggo slapped him, fury in his eyes. The pain was balm to Colum, just what he’d wanted – to lift his lover to the next level of excitement. As Viggo realized it, he smirked, chuckled, shook his head. 

“You asked for it,” he growled, and the assault began. 

Colum’s lung capacity had grown in these months, as he’d learned to hold his breath longer and longer. Having Viggo’s cock down his throat could be like being underwater – breathing simply wasn’t a choice, there was nothing out there but the engulfing weight of oblivion. 

His head spun as he grew light-headed now, choking uselessly as Viggo’s member remained embedded deep in his throat, in and out but never all the way out, always just far enough to make Colum hope for air, but not enough to get it.

Sex with Viggo was like battle, and his endurance was like his shield wall – could he take the onslaught, could he survive it and come back for more? Yes, a thousand times yes, he thought as Viggo finally threw him off, threw him down to the ground and flipped him over, his weight pressing Colum’s face into the dirt and straw, his gasps choking him on the dust.

Viggo was fond of the mutton fat, Colum knew. Always, Colum had a little with him in a little satchel around his neck. Most days it was discarded, rotten, unused…but he always filled a new one each day, hung it on a leather string and tucked it inside his tunic, just in case. 

Viggo knew it, too. Sometimes it dangled out of his tunic as Colum leaned over to do a task, and Viggo would see it, and grin at him, and Colum would grin back, an inquiry in his eyes. And sometimes Viggo would tilt his head and they would go behind a building, or across a dune, or into this stable, and…

So Viggo knew to reach for it, to untie it from behind Colum’s neck, and to reach in and slather his fingers with the rich oily substance before inserting his fingers into Colum’s ass.

Colum arched his back now, his rump reaching for Viggo’s intruding digits, begging for it. All the gods that may be, he prayed, if this is the last time ever, make it the best time ever.

Viggo wiped his fingers on Colum’s ass, his body nothing but a rag for Viggo’s pleasure. Then he wrapped his arms around Colum, as he had that first day on the beach at Iona – tenderly, lovingly, and Colum reached up and held Viggo’s forearms, so strong and hard and warm. 

“My love,” Viggo whispered. And that was too much for him, and Colum began to cry.

Viggo let him for a moment. “What is it?”

“This is it, isn’t it? Our last time. Now that I’m not a slave.”

Viggo laughed, his hands moving, one hand stroking Colum’s throat as if he was the sacrificial sheep, the other squeezing his nipple hard. “Is that what you think?”

“But it’s unmanly, isn’t it, I mean, you can do anything with a slave, but…”

“Well,” Viggo said lightly, his hot breath gusting into Colum’s ear with that word and making him gasp as even Viggo’s rough hands hadn’t, “you’ll be unmanned. Not me. You’ll have to fight the insults you receive, and you will receive them. Men will mock you now as they wouldn’t mock a slave for taking it up the ass. 

“All you have to do,” Viggo said as his cock entered Colum’s ass, “is beat the crap out of every one of them. And this,” he pushed himself in deeper, “can still be yours.”

“Oh, God,” Colum whimpered, as Viggo filled him, hard and hot and huge. “Anything, anything not to lose this.”

“You’re still mine,” Viggo growled, and Colum could feel the end of words coming, the rising animal spirits in both of them consuming all thought. “You are a freedman, but bound to me, a part of my family, of my clan. An honored family…” and he pushed all the way in, hitting that golden apple deep inside Colum, “…retainer.”

Colum laughed, but only for a moment, as the pain set in as Viggo began to pump away, thoughtless, careless, reckless. Colum was no longer a beloved, but a slave again, nothing but a receptacle for Viggo’s seed. His hands were cruel now, one hand on the back of Colum’s head, pushing his face into the straw, smearing his features across the ground, the other hand against the stall wall, bracing Viggo as his lower body bucked and shivered, sinuous and fast.

“Fuck me!” Colum cried, a command, a plea. “Fuck me!”

“You want to get fucked?” Viggo shouted angrily, indignant that Colum was suggesting he wasn’t getting fucked yet. “I’ll fuck you.”

He pulled out with a pop that made Colum flinch, then he flipped Colum over like a sack of grain, grabbed his ankles and pushed them back almost to the ground. His face hung over Colum’s, his hair hanging free, the dim light burnishing his skin, the shadows only accentuating his chiseled features, his impossibly beautiful body.

Without touching it, Viggo landed the head of his cock right on Colum’s asshole. “Open it,” he commanded, and Colum felt himself relax without even thinking about it. Then Viggo punched himself all the way in with a single thrust.

“AHH!” Colum screamed, the violation so intense. But that only incited Viggo more, his mouth set into a grimace as he set about wrecking Colum’s ass, keeping it pointed up even as his own assault hammered it down into the ground.

“Still mine,” Viggo said. “Mine forever.”

“Yes! Always!” Colum shouted, through the tears of pain and ecstasy.

“Mine,” Viggo panted. “Mine….ahhh!” He climaxed, blowing his seed deep into Colum’s guts, marking the boundaries of his territory farther than ever before. 

Finally he was spent, let go of Colum’s ankles, and collapsed on top of him, still embedded in his lover’s ass.

Colum stroked Viggo’s heaving sweaty torso, gathered his hair and knotted it into a club, kissed Viggo’s ear where it lay next to his mouth, his head cradled on Colum’s shoulder. 

I would be your slave again and again, Colum thought, if that was what it took to keep these moments. And the fact that he didn’t need to be a slave, that he could be free, and still have this ecstatic servitude, was sweeter than honey, warmer than the sun, worth more than all the treasure in the world.

The next morning found the two men entwined as first light shot through the stable windows onto their bodies. Colum woke first, his head on Viggo’s chest, his lover’s deep, steady breathing like the sound of the ocean in a shell. The morning light sent an alarm through his head – I’m late! Gunna will twist my ear for not having the cows milked and the…

He stopped. The vibration of his chuckle caused Viggo, a light sleeper like all warriors, to open an eye and look at him. “Something funny?”

“I thought I was late for kitchen duty. I forgot I’m a free man now.”

Viggo smiled, stroked Colum’s head, rubbed the close-cropped hair of the thrall, hair that would now be allowed to grow out. “In time you’ll forget you were a slave.” 

A shadow crossed his face as he said this. Colum wanted to ask what it meant, so rare was an unprovoked dark look on Viggo. But before he could muster the courage, Viggo had gently extracted himself from under Colum. 

“Come on, time to eat. You’ll need your strength today.”

They went to the great hall, where others in Viggo’s clan, all the other warriors and free men, were shaking off last night’s fog and sitting down to breakfast. The ale brewed for the thrall-freeing ceremony was a special blend, much stronger than the usual brew, and Colum was thankful, looking at their red eyes and slack mouths, that he’d been a servant one last time, and not a celebrant.

It was strange, sitting behind the table instead of standing. His friend Niall, another former monk and still a thrall, refilled his cup when he finished off his ale (a much lighter brew than last night’s), and brushed his hip against Colum’s shoulder.

“Congratulations, master,” Niall whispered. Colum flushed with embarrassment; the two friends had been brought here from Iona as slaves, and now Colum was Niall’s master – property he had won in his duel with Harald, property formerly held by Viggo in trust until this day.

He looked up at his friend. “I’ll find a way to free you, Niall. To adopt you into my household when the time comes, as Viggo adopted me into his.”

Niall smiled. “You know I don’t mind this situation.”

Colum did indeed know – Niall’s mouth and ass had been roughly used by his first Viking master, and he had reveled in the sexual humiliation, the discovery of pleasure after a lifetime of celibacy in the monastery. Niall would accept slavery forever if it meant he could continue to give men his body every night. 

“In fact,” Niall said softly, “now that you’re my master, I should only be serving you…”

Colum choked on his ale. “That won’t be necessary.”

Niall looked hurt. Colum knew from their days at Iona that Niall had desires for him. And he had to admit, sitting at the table, leaning back in a slouch, legs splayed like the other men, he could see the appeal of just…grabbing a slave by the head and forcing him down on your groin and fucking his worthless face…

He shook this off. Niall was his friend! Slave or not, that would not be right.

“Sorry, Niall,” he said. Then he smiled. “And I give you permission to…continue your service to the other men.” He held up a warning finger. “As long as they’re part of our clan, and not our enemies.”

Niall laughed, then hastily backed off, seeing the frowns from the men around him. It wasn’t a slave’s place to laugh in the presence of free men. 

Colum hid his erection, then realized, why? Who’s looking? I have a desire to take my slave, so what? He laughed, realizing what freedom meant now – free for the first time in his life really. He had been his father’s property, toiling in his fields, then he had been the church’s property, slaving away on manuscripts. Then, Viggo’s slave.

Now he was nobody’s property. Viggo’s man, to be sure, but gladly. He could get up any time, walk out of here, walk to the sea, or walk away, down the road forever and ever and nobody would stop him.

Freedom…this is what it means to be a Northman, to go Viking, to do as you please. He nodded. Dýrfinna was right - this is my destiny.

One thing hadn’t changed with the end of his slavery – well, if anything, it had become an even stronger obligation, and that was Viggo’s command that he continue to write down the old pagan manuscripts he’d memorized at Iona. Once again they would live, the words the Church had literally erased from human memory. Colum had been set to scraping the words off paper, so it could be reused for stories about saints who preached to the ocean, and converted the sharks to peaceable seaweed eaters or some other such nonsense. 

After breakfast he went to Dýrfinna’s house. The monk’s desk waited for him in the brightest corner of her house, the sunlight easier on his eyes than the sputtering candles in the cold, dark chambers at Iona. 

She greeted him with narrowed eyes. “The sheep,” she said, was all she needed to say.

He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I used your name, I had to…”

“You kill men and spare animals,” she said in a harsh tone, but he could see the mischievous glitter in her eyes and the barely suppressed smile. “You are a strange one, Colum of Clonmacnoise.”

He thought of her first prophecy about him – free, slave, free, slave, free. That prophecy was fulfilled. But there had been another – scholar, lover, warrior, merchant, magician, scholar. Each and all in time. The first three were all true now, all at once. How would the rest spin out in the future? 

He smiled at her. “I bring you a gift, Dýrfinna.” He handed her two gold coins, just as Viggo had once sent with him on his first visit. “From a free man.”

She smiled and nodded. “Very good. You’re learning.” As before, she threw one into her fireplace, and pocketed the other. 

He went to take his place at the desk, to begin his morning’s work on Livy’s History of Rome, but she stopped him, the grip of her withered claw surprisingly strong.

“Not today. Today we have a visitor.”

“Where?”

“He’s not here yet. Ah, here he is.” Colum looked out the front door to see a man riding down the lane – clearly a foreigner, as he was sumptuously dressed in rich fabrics, his burgundy robe draped elegantly over the horse’s rump, a velvet hat on his head. Men followed him at a near distance, looking for the opportunity to rob him. But when he came to Dýrfinna’s door, they backed off, of course – sorcerer’s business was nothing for a man to trifle with.

He dismounted from his fine horse and approached them with a smile. He was an old man, Colum thought, at least forty, with kindly crinkles around his eyes – eyes that were still bright and young, though. 

“Am I for having the house Dýrfinna of?” he asked in broken Norse.

“This is her house,” Colum answered in Latin.

The man’s relief was palpable. “Praise be to God. And you must be he whom I seek.” He swept off his hat and bowed gracefully. Dýrfinna harumphed and Colum smiled; she wasn’t going to let him get a big head just because he was free and foreigners were looking for him.

“I am Giovanni Allesandri, from Florence. An honor, sir.”

“Likewise,” Colum said. 

“Do come in,” Dýrfinna said, kicking Colum in the ankle for not thinking of that himself.

“Thank you.” He took the proffered seat at the table and Colum joined him as Dýrfinna poured them some ale.

Giovanni saw the desk in the corner and his eyes widened. “It is true, then,” Giovanni said. “The stories of the Pagan Redeemer.”

“The what?” Colum asked.

“The apostate monk who has all of the ancient world preserved in his head. The restorer of the glories of the ancients, whose manuscripts are known far and wide.”

“Oh?” 

“Well,” Giovanni said hastily. “Not so wide. One must be discreet, you know. Charlemagne, for instance, was not pleased with the news.”

Colum wasn’t surprised. The Emperor Charlemagne was a religious fanatic, a relentless killer of pagans and heretics. But what did surprise Colum was that news of his existence had reached the ears of royalty. 

“In fact, it pains me to say, he…acquired some of your books of Livy and put them to the torch.”

“What!” Colum shouted, half jumping up from the table. All the hard work he’d put in, day after day, restoring the history of that great empire to paper – burnt, for what, for what reason? Only because it wasn’t about some damn saint who converted the bees to Christianity and sent them out to sting the pagans to death.

“Please,” Giovanni gestured peaceably. “Sit. All is not lost. Your books are copied in secret, stored in secret. This is the day for them to be reborn, from your hands, but not their day to leave their crib for the world. We must be discreet.”

Dýrfinna nodded. “It is true, Colum. No man will ever know your name. History will erase you. The Church will see to it that even this name, the Pagan Redeemer, is scrubbed. And you must let it be so. Men like this will hide the books, until a better day.”

Giovanni nodded. “And now,” he said, rubbing his hands with excitement, “I hear you have a fine copy of De Rerum Natura…”

Colum was late that afternoon for his training session with Viggo. He’d been so involved in his conversation with Giovanni that he hadn’t realized how much time had passed until Dýrfinna had coughed dramatically. Books! Readers! He hadn’t realized how much he missed talking about books until he was somewhere nobody read them. 

Only, he thought with a pang as he ran down the road, Viggo read them, didn’t he? He could read and write, even some Latin (grammatically incorrect, but still), he’d known the value of Lucretius’ work… He felt a flush of shame that he hadn’t pursued that line of questioning with his lover before now. 

He’d expected Viggo to be angry when he got to the practice field behind Viggo’s great hall. But Viggo was leaning on his broadsword, staring into the distance, preoccupied.

Colum stopped before him, bent over, hands on knees, gasping for air. “My apologies, my lord.” For Viggo was still his lord, even if he was a freedman now.

Viggo waved it away. “A change in plan today. Take that sword,” he said, indicating a blade leaning against a barrel. 

Colum examined the sword – a fine, Frankish blade. Charlemagne had forbidden the export of weapons to the North, but of course, where there was money to be made, laws were meant to be broken.

Viggo rolled a small barrel into the middle of the field, and laid a wide plank on top of it. “Stand on that,” he said, indicating the end touching the ground.

Colum gingerly stepped on the end of the plank – surely the barrel would be forced out from underneath it. But the ground was soft and the barrel stayed steady.

“Now walk up.”

Colum looked at Viggo, but didn’t dare question the command. Tentatively, slowly, he stepped up the plank, holding his sword. When he got near the midpoint, he could feel his weight shifting the plank, the end he’d started at inching up off the ground. He held both arms out for balance, but the sword in his right hand was heavy, throwing him off. Then he took a step that suddenly brought the plank completely off the ground. 

He flailed and shouted as the other end of the plank began to tip towards the ground. He couldn’t fall, not only because Viggo was watching, but because he could literally fall on his sword. He ran down it and touched the ground just as the other end did.

“Ah, feck,” he whispered the Irish curse. 

Viggo was smiling. “Well, well. Very good for your first time.”

“Thank you, lord. May I ask…what am I doing?”

“Preparing for ship-to-ship combat. When you assault a ship, you’ll be jumping from one unsteady surface to another, all while fighting for your life.”

“And…are we going to be doing that soon, lord?”

Viggo nodded, the dark clouds back on his brow. “Yes.”

But now Colum the free man could do what a slave could not. He approached Viggo, touched Viggo’s hand with his own. “There’s something more to this. More than just a raid.”

Viggo’s steel blue eyes looked down and met his. “Come. Let’s get a drink.”

They took two mugs and a small cask of ale to the beach. Colum realized that any conversation that required this much drinking would be of some consequence.

They sat next to each other on the sand, the cold wind coming off the sea. After they had toasted and each knocked back a full mug, Viggo sighed – and a more astonishing sound from his invulnerable, invincible master, Colum could not have imagined.

Colum looked around – nobody could see them, and so he dared to move closer to Viggo. Viggo responded by putting an arm around him, pulling him in close. The feel of his lover’s body enfolding him made Colum more drunk and delirious with pleasure than the whole cask of ale ever could have.

“I was a slave once, too,” Viggo began. “A prince, too, before that. My father was a king of the Saxons, or as much as our people would stand to have for a king. Then Charlemagne came, killing us in the name of his ‘religion of love.’ I was just a boy, ten years old, when I saw my father, and thousands of others, forcibly converted to Christianity just before they were executed. The massacre at Verden, I should have you write of it. They won’t tell the truth of it, I know that.” 

He paused. “We were taken off our lands, ‘resettled’ elsewhere – clans, families, smashed, broken up, never to see each other again. Since I could read and write, and was still at an age where they thought they could ‘save’ me, I was taken to Aachen, Charlemagne’s capital. I learned Latin,” and Colum could hear him smile without seeing it, “though I read it better than I write it, as you probably know.

“There’s no word for ‘sin’ in Norse. Our gods judge a man in full, they don’t keep a catalog of how many times he touched his privates or failed to fall to his knees in the street at the sight of a priest. They tried to teach me about sin, to convince me how terrible pleasure was.” He snorted. “Hypocrites, all of them, and the ones who denounced pleasure the loudest at dawn were the ones who’d sought it most ardently at night. I fought them off when they came to my bed, but others weren’t as strong physically as I was…

“All they gave me to read was religious material. They truly believed that there was not one single book from the days before Christ that was worth a damn. So imagine my surprise when I found Caesar’s commentaries on Gaul. When I realized that there were words on paper that weren’t about how long a priest’s robe should be, or how concerned their god was with how a monk cut his hair. When I learned that there ways to fight beyond just brawling, ways to wage war systematically, ways to build an empire…or defeat one.

“Then I managed to get free. I escaped to the court of King Guthfrith, who took me into his household, schooled me in the ways of battle, made me a man again.”

He was silent. Finally Colum said, “That’s why you’re so good to your slaves. You were one.”

Viggo nodded. “It does give one perspective. Now, Guthfrith needs me. War with the Franks is coming. And so, my beloved, we go to battle. Do you know of the Spartans? The army of lovers?”

“No,” Colum said.

Viggo smiled. “All Latin and no Greek, eh?” He hoisted Colum up by the ass, just enough to get a leg under him, so that he could pull him in and wrap his arms around Colum completely. A wave of indescribable joy came over Colum, to feel the heat of Viggo’s torso pressed against his back, his strong arms crushing him in the most wonderful way, to hear his voice, to feel his warm breath, inches from his ear.

“ ‘And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city ... and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him.’”

Colum nodded. It was true. He would go to war, and he would die for Viggo, if need be, and Viggo would die for him. 

Their time alone was soon over. Viggo had responsibilities, as did Colum now, and dinner time at the great hall was never less than a crowded affair. If any man thought it odd that Colum sat at Viggo’s side in the place of honor each night, he kept it to himself.

Niall was between them, pouring wine into Colum’s cup, when he squeaked, jumped, and nearly spilled the jug. Colum turned to see Viggo grinning wickedly, having just slapped Niall’s ass. Niall blushed and smiled before retreating.

Colum was conflicted, feeling both shame for his friend and jealousy of him. Did Viggo desire Niall? Would he act on it?

“You need to think of your friend differently now,” Viggo said. “He’s your slave, remember. Not mine. You won him in your combat with Harald.”

“Then I can free him,” Colum said.

“You can. And if that’s your first act as a freedman, to free a slave, it’ll be seen as weakness. Other men will challenge you, attack you, defeat you. And then Niall will be re-enslaved anyway.”

“But no man tries to make me a slave again.”

“No, but that’s because you earned your freedom, in battle. You earned respect, which you have already risked.”

“How?”

“If you can’t kill a sheep, how can you kill a man?”

Colum flushed. “Men are guilty. The sheep was innocent. It seemed… wrong to celebrate my freedom by killing something.”

Viggo eyed him. “I need you to be strong. To be seen as strong. Call for Niall.”

Colum didn’t need to call for him; he was standing against the wall behind him and had heard every word. Niall was standing attentively between them in a flash.

“Tell him to suck your cock.”

Colum looked at Niall. He’d known for some time now that his friend desired him, that this was something Niall had wanted. Colum had always held back, always thought it would be a betrayal of their friendship. But now, it was clear, he must do this for Niall, must show the others that Niall was his property – and therefore under his protection – in the clearest way possible.

“Do it,” Colum said, the firmness in his own voice surprising him. “Get down under the table.”

Niall obeyed in a flash. The Viking code was simple – what was done publicly was not shameful, what was done in secret was another matter. Viggo had seated Colum beside him, publicly, to show the world his place in Viggo’s world. Now Colum would show the world Niall’s place in his.

Niall was between his legs, looking up at him, eyes aglitter in the darkness beneath the great oak table. Something rose in Colum, dark and strong, to match his stiffening manhood. This was what Viggo saw when Colum knelt before him! A full grown man, subjected to him, forced to pleasure him. 

Niall smiled and Colum slapped him, hard. He’s not your equal! He told himself. Niall was shocked for a moment, then he saw the look in Colum’s eyes and responded with a dark shadow in his own. Niall undid Colum’s breeches and grasped his master by the root, then opened his mouth and took him inside.

“Oh…” Colum groaned. This was what he did to Viggo! This was the sensation of a man sucking you. It was smooth and warm and wet in Niall’s mouth, and Colum knew that behind this soft cave was the tight tunnel of his throat. He pushed his hips forward, and Niall responded eagerly, opening wide to take him.

The pressure of Niall’s throat swallowing his meat was maddening. He had to get more of himself in there! All of himself! He grabbed Niall’s head and jammed himself down, deeper, till he felt Niall’s forehead grinding against his hip bone.

He turned to see what Viggo’s reaction would be. His lover was watching intently, clearly surprised to see this side of Colum. You’ve only ever known me in that role, Colum thought, Niall’s role, and now you see, now we both see, I can play another.

Colum’s mind seemed to split in two – one part of him was above, using Niall’s head as carelessly as a warrior might use his enemy’s skull as a drinking cup. And the other part of him was on his knees in his mind, feeling for Niall, knowing what it felt like to have another man use you…the pleasure seemed magnified, as his perfect memory ran through the paces Viggo had put him through, and which he now put Niall through – the same grasp on the back of his neck, the same clutching of his throat to tighten the hole as he fucked it, the same reptilian motion of his hips.

Colum pulled out and looked at his own stiff cock – was it as big as Viggo’s? Almost, he noted with satisfaction, and as he stroked it and slapped it against Niall’s face, he could see that Niall’s hunger for it was proof of its size.

Then he turned to see Viggo watching him. What he saw startled him, for on Viggo’s face was a look of surprise as well. Colum smiled – you still underestimate me, my lord! You had no idea I could be as cruel as you, that I too could give pleasure through pain…

The corner of Viggo’s mouth turned up wryly. He stood up. “Come,” he said, a command. Colum threw Niall off and stood up, grabbing his breeches. 

“Both of you,” Viggo smiled. 

Colum looked at Niall, whose eyes widened. To be chosen, to be taken by Viggo had been far beyond his wildest dreams, Colum could see.

The three men left the hall, the others too focused on their own pleasures to give a damn. Where would Viggo lead them, Colum wondered. 

To his shock, Viggo took them to his own chamber. 

“Shut the door,” Colum said to Niall, who eagerly complied. “Strip.” Niall’s clothes were off in a heartbeat. His friend’s body was slim and trim, hardened from the labor he performed all day, all monastic softness shorn away with his tonsure, his hair barely a finger’s-width long, the slave’s haircut. His ass was smooth and looked as ripe as a melon in the dim firelight. Colum was seized with the need to split it just like a melon. 

Colum grabbed Niall by the back of the neck and shoved him down to his knees. He took off his tunic and threw it over Niall’s head like a hood on a captive. 

“My lord’s boots,” Colum commanded. “Then mine.” Viggo grinned, leaning against a corner post of the great bed that had no doubt once belonged to a fine gentleman somewhere. Niall threw the tunic off his head and crawled across the floor to Viggo’s feet, quickly unlacing the leather laces before scrambling back to Colum to do the same for him.

Boots off, Colum dropped his trousers and stood there in his naked glory. He wasn’t as tall as Viggo, his skin was mostly free of scars, and he had always been fit and active, other than the time at Iona when he’d been practically chained to a desk. And he too had become leaner, more sculpted, by the life of a slave, but also bigger, stronger, on the unlimited food provided to all in Viggo’s household, a far cry from the thin gruel of the monastery.

And as he turned his torso just so in the firelight, he knew the fire in Viggo’s eyes was stoked by the sight. I won’t become a fat drunken bastard like so many at that table, Colum swore. I will be more of a warrior than all of them. I will bear scars like my beloved, I will bear them as he does…

Viggo could stand it no longer. He rushed Colum, pinned his arms up against the wall. Instinctively Colum fought the grasp, but Viggo’s hands on his wrists were too strong. Viggo looked into his eyes, mesmerizing him as a predator does its prey, then closed his own eyes as he moved in to kiss Colum slowly, tenderly.

A whimper escaped from Niall, and Colum realized this was part of the drama. He smiled and returned the kiss, warm, soft, the bristles of Viggo’s short beard like a thousand little lashes across his own smooth cheek, his chin, his neck. He turned his head to look at Niall as Viggo bit his throat. 

“My lord,” Colum whispered. “My master.” All this was an acknowledgement of Colum’s equality as a man, even as it was a reminder that Viggo was still his ruler. 

When Viggo let go of his arms, Colum reached to lift Viggo’s tunic. Viggo put his arms over his head to let him. Then without looking he reached for the tie to his lover’s breeches, pulled it, and watched as they fell to the dirt floor. 

Viggo stepped out of them and kicked them away, then turned to Niall. “Suck our cocks.”

Viggo and Colum stood to face their slave. Viggo, the taller man, had his arm over Colum’s shoulder, and Colum had his arm around Viggo’s waist, as Niall squatted before them, unsure which to suck first.

Viggo made the decision for him, grabbing his head and pulling him in, striking his face with the heavy club, over and over. Colum moved so that he too could smack Niall across the face with his own club. Niall gasped and writhed at the assault, eyes closed, mouth slack, begging, waiting to be filled.

Viggo took the lead, pushing Colum out of the way – the alpha male taking the first prime cut of the kill. Colum stroked himself, but slowly, too excited, as Viggo fucked Niall’s face.

“Grease him up,” Viggo said to Colum. “Fuck him.” Colum smiled, the little sack of mutton fat around his neck as always. 

Niall responded by going to all fours, arching his ass up in the air. Colum laughed. “A cat in heat.” 

“Then make him howl,” Viggo encouraged him. 

Colum went to his knees behind Niall, and took the bag off his neck. He opened it and smeared the fat on two fingers. Cruelly he thought, I needn’t be as careful with Niall as with myself – he’s had more cock up his ass than I have.

But Niall surprised him – his hole was still tight, and it was work to force two fingers up it at once, even with the grease. Niall squealed as Colum shoved them inside him, but it only inflamed the lust of both the men using him. Colum finger-fucked him roughly, looking up at Viggo, who was fucking his face at the same time. The two lovers’ eyes locked even as their bodies did other things, almost as if they were wolves, dueling to see who would tear more flesh off Niall’s carcass.

He could stand it no more. Colum wiped his greasy fingers on Niall’s back and grabbed his hips. He rubbed his aching limb against Niall’s crack, getting it slippery with fat. Niall was a cat in heat, he thought, arching, begging, trying to suck Colum off with his asshole. 

“Be still,” Colum commanded him finally, and Niall obeyed – or at least as still as he could be with Viggo pounding away at his other end. Colum didn’t take his hands off Niall’s waist, but moved his own hips around until the head of his staff was just centered on Niall’s hole. Then with a single stroke, he buried himself to the hilt.

“AHHH!” Niall screamed in pain, tearing himself away from servicing Viggo for a moment before Viggo forced him back into position. Colum forgot friendship, affection, and concern. This was war! And Niall’s body was the enemy, to be attacked, conquered, plundered. He lost all care as he punched it, knowing all too well how Niall’s own hole felt right now, getting pummeled and pounded into submission.

Viggo slapped Niall. “Shut up.” Colum didn’t even look at Viggo, he was too intent on his own battle. This is what it’s like to fuck another man! He felt drunk with the power; this was better than combat, better than anything… Viggo, Viggo, I see now what that look in your eyes is when you do this to me…

Niall was too tight, Colum was too excited. His orgasm took him; he tried to slow down, to make it last, but he couldn’t. With a great shout he exploded inside Niall, over and over. Then, when it seemed finished, he looked up at Viggo, and that made him cum again, more juice being pulled out of him, so intense it felt as if someone had hooked his guts through his shaft and was pulling them out. 

Blindly he reached his right hand out and Viggo took him by the wrist with his own right hand, grasping him as you would pull a drowning man onto a boat. Now Viggo shot too, his own face going slack with delirium, the sight of Colum’s body flexing every muscle as the cramps of his eruption took him was too much. His grasp was like iron on Colum’s wrist as his other hand held Niall’s head, as both of them filled Niall with their seed.

Finally, shuddering, they let go, pulled away from each other, pulled out of Niall, who fell to the ground, shuddering, gasping for air, used up and reveling in it. Colum laughed as Niall reached up and grabbed at Colum’s cock, squeezing out another drop of seed and eagerly licking it off his fingers, mixing Colum’s essence with Viggo’s in his mouth.

Viggo reached under Colum’s arms and raised him up, kissed him, stroked his ass, a promise that what he’d done to Niall would soon be done to him.

“Now,” Viggo whispered, “you are a Viking.”

In the following days, Colum felt like a new man. He walked taller, met men’s eyes with more confidence, and it was as if all his days in service – to the church, to the Vikings – had never been. He felt virile, strong, and he smiled far more often than before. It was as if he had truly lost his virginity when he fucked Niall’s ass, and now he really was a man. 

Dýrfinna noticed it too. “Your hand is stronger,” she said, looking over his shoulder at his latest manuscript. The double meaning was readily apparent in her tone. 

He laughed. “A firm hand is the sign of a firm mind.”

“Indeed. Ah,” she said, “here he comes.”

Giovanni had been eagerly awaiting Colum’s latest production, all the more so since the town had so little in the way of attractions for a man living the life of the mind. His sack of gold hung alluringly before Colum on a post – Dýrfinna’s house being the safest place for it – and the payment it promised fueled Colum’s productivity. He would need a hall of his own, soon, he knew, and an income to support it. Viggo would take a wife and her place would be there in his hall. But Viggo would still be his, he knew, no matter what brood mare he took.

His mood wasn’t brightened by the look on Giovanni’s face. The Florentine swept his hat off. “I have news, I’m afraid.”

“Go on,” Colum said, laying down his quill.

“The Franks have put a price on your head. For the incident at the Northumbrian monastery.”

“A price on my head for robbery?”

“For blasphemy. And murder.”

“Murder! I let them all live. I made the other Vikings spare them! No one touched a hair on their heads!”

“That’s not the tale that’s told abroad, I’m sorry to say. They say you put them all to the sword, butchered them in their beds, crucified some and threw others into the sea…”

“Bastards!” Colum shouted. “Why, anyone can go there and see that they’re all in one piece…”

“And yet, who will travel so far to disprove what is so easily believed,” Giovanni said sorrowfully.

Colum’s face fell. It was true – whatever story served the needs of Charlemagne and his war against the unbelievers, would be the story that was told. The pagans must be thought of as animals, for the men of Charlemagne’s army to be able to slaughter them all like animals.

“We will,” Viggo said from the doorway. “We will travel as far as need be to make sure the story of the Pagan Redeemer is not lost to the world.”

Colum looked at his beloved and felt a surge of emotions – pride, relief, gratitude. Viggo was resplendent, dressed for travel…and for battle.

He extended his hand out, towards the whole wide world. “Come. We have a war to fight.”

It was a five-day journey from Birka to Hedeby, the other great Viking trading center and Guthfrith’s capital. All hands were on the oars to take the langskip, the Viking warship, down the river and out into the sea. Colum relished the labor as it burned away the rage he felt. The church preached goodness and mercy, but when a pagan showed goodness and mercy, well, nothing but smears and untruths would do to conceal the fact. 

Eventually the rhythm of the oars took him, as he became one with the other men, an equal this time. Viggo was on the bench opposite him, his strokes in time with Colum’s, and the cool sea air and the mildly delirious pleasure of extended physical exertion erased Colum’s rage.

Then a cry went up from the front of the ship. “Franks!”

The enemy ship was headed straight for them. “What are they doing?” Colum asked Viggo. “Are they mad, one ship attacking a Viking warship?”

Viggo’s eagle eyes watch the other ship. He smirked, pointing at the two men blessing the crew, their heads bent. “They have more priests than we do, so their god will bring them victory.”

“As I said, they’re mad.”

Viggo laughed, then his looks darkened. “Prepare for battle.”

They rowed their ship towards the Frankish ship, on board which the enemy was clearly ready for action, helmets and shields in place. The sea was calm – no one would have attempted such an assault in choppy waves that could send you toppling into a watery grave.

It was uncanny, Colum thought, the way the men worked together without speaking, almost instinctively adjusting the strokes of the oars on one side or the other to draw parallel to the other ship.

Now the langskip was spinning sideways, or what felt to Colum like sideways as it approached the Frankish ship at an angle. As they drew closer, the Vikings pulled the oars in, and mounted their shields along the side above the oar holes, just as the Frankish arrows were launched at them. Like the other men, Colum hunched behind his shield, his heart racing. He understood now why men went into battle shouting – you couldn’t scream in terror after all, so you turned that terror into anger.

The ships met, the long side of the langskip crashing into the Frankish vessel’s side. Colum and others who wielded the long Dane axe used them as grappling hooks to pull the two ships into a killer’s embrace. Two men on either end of the Viking warship threw grappling hooks to secure the two ships. 

And then the men rose as one, their shields like a moving wall that pressed across the gap and onto the enemy’s deck.

Colum screamed and raised his axe, bringing it down on a helmet and denting it hard enough to knock its occupant senseless. Around him swords clanged and clashed, and Colum looked around to see where he could best assist the taller, stronger men. 

He saw Viggo locked in combat with a giant Frank, bigger than his beloved, and before Viggo could be overmatched, Colum ducked down and took the man’s legs out from under him with a sweep of his axe. Viggo grinned at him, only for a second before moving on to the next man. 

Colum used the blade of his axe to drag down another man’s shield so that Einar could use his great strength, and his sharp blade, to thrust through the man’s armor. 

The seesaw plank on which Viggo had him practice was nothing compared to the dangerous imbalance here, where each time he got his footing it was taken away from him. The battle went in slow motion, it seemed to him, as men hesitated on both sides, making sure the force of their strokes wouldn’t tumble them into the water. Their death was assured if they fell into the water, wearing their heavy leather jackets with the metal scales sewn in.

But the Vikings had done this sort of thing before – against each other along the coastline for centuries, and for decades against men who’d only fought on land. They danced on the waves where the Franks stumbled, they knew how to place their feet to best advantage. And from one moment to the next, the battle changed as the Vikings, as one, took a step forward, and they were on the Frankish deck. Now they would do what they did best – drive their enemies into the sea.

Then Colum stumbled as a huge Frank shattered his shield, and he felt himself tipping backward from the force of it. He was going over the edge!

But a strong hand grabbed him by the front of his surcoat, pulled him back to his feet – Viggo’s hand. “Come on,” his lover snarled, “let’s kill some real barbarians.”

Colum laughed, alight with battle frenzy again, even more so after his own near death. And back into the battle he pitched himself, axe flying.

The Franks became subsumed with terror as they were driven back, but no retreat was possible – the other side of the ship may as well have been a cliff edge. But eventually many chose that death over the more painful one at the point of the sword – including, Colum noted with satisfaction, the priests, who knew there would be no mercy for them.

Finally the ship was theirs, their remaining living enemies doomed to slavery. The roar of battle rage became the howl of victory, a howl that became a cry of joy when a casket was opened to reveal gold and silver chalices. The men were about to throw the sumptuous surplices and other accoutrements of priesthood into the sea to get to the gold, but Colum stopped them. 

“There’s money sewn into those, you’ll find, when they’re picked apart.” The men flinched at the thought that they’d almost thrown gold into the sea.

“Well fought,” Viggo said to Colum, slapping him on the back. Colum smiled at his blood-spattered lover, and it was as if a second sun had come out to warm him. My lord, he thought, my love…

They landed on the island of Gotland for the night. The men made camp, and Colum watched as the new slaves were struck as they spilled water or dropped firewood. I should feel pity for them, he thought, but his anger at all Franks was too great, at least for now.

The battle lust had left him, and now he found himself sitting in a small clearing of trees clinging to the cliff above the beach. He was shivering uncontrollably, shaking really, and couldn’t explain why, couldn’t stop. He’d hidden here, not wanting Viggo to see him like this, hugging himself like a girl, tears streaming down his face.

Viggo found him, had noticed his absence, had known what was happening to him. He astonished Colum by taking him by his crossed arms and lifting him up, taking off his own heavy fur cloak, a spoil of the battle, and wrapping it around the both of them. Colum stood there, enveloped in the warm darkness, pressed between the cloak and Viggo’s chest.

“The battle frenzy is wearing off. This is to be expected.”

Colum nodded. The shivering was less now, and he couldn’t say if it was the warmth of Viggo’s body or the warmth in his words that was the more powerful medicine.

Now he could feel something else, the taller man’s erect manhood pressed against his belly. And Colum’s own member responded in turn. 

Viggo felt it and laughed. “That’s the other half of the story of war. The other battle lust, the excitement of having survived, the urge to fuck, to revel in life that comes afterward.”

Colum nodded. “Yes.” He unwrapped one hand from around Viggo’s torso and dropped it to his master’s crotch, stroking the long fat tool through his breeches. 

Viggo turned him around by the hip with one hand, still holding the cloak with the other. He threw it down to make a blanket on the cold, leaf-strewn ground, then gently went to his knees, taking Colum with him, then pressing him flat on the ground, making him take all of Viggo’s weight.

Then Viggo had his breeches down below his hips, and Colum’s, too. “I don’t have the fat…” Colum began, but Viggo’s hand touched his mouth, just a finger to silence him. Viggo wiped tears from Colum’s face and touched them to his ass, gently massaging the hole. Then he brought his hand back and put his fingers in his lover’s mouth, taking the spit and adding that to the elixir he was preparing down there. 

Finally he reached under Colum and stroked him slowly. Colum groaned with the pleasure of that rough, hard calloused hand, amazed to discover how smooth its motions could be. When Viggo had coaxed a drop of juice from the tip, that, too, went into Colum’s hole.

“Open up for me,” Viggo whispered, and Colum relaxed, discovering as Viggo’s fingers measured his compliance that he could indeed open himself to his lover, without the normal lubrication. Viggo’s tip pressed against his hole and Colum arched his back, his ass, and Viggo eased himself in, slower than he ever had, truly making love to him now.

Viggo’s path up inside him was a new and strange route for both of them, with so little to smooth its way. He felt even larger inside Colum now, and it was as if they had never really fucked, never really felt each other’s flesh, as if the fat had been a barrier. 

In slow and steady waves, Viggo penetrated him further, until finally the sweet painful pressure of Viggo deep inside him had built to its fullest. “Oh…” Colum whispered, his shivers now those of ecstasy.

Viggo enfolded him, kissed the back of his neck, nipped at it like an animal, causing even more surging shivers as he picked up his pace. 

“Fuck me,” Colum said. “My lord, fuck me, I beg you.”

Viggo went still. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

And with that, the dance changed, Viggo’s arms came out from around him and pressed his shoulders down towards the ground. He spread Colum’s legs with his knees to give him full access to the ripe, round ass sticking up in the air. And then, both men took a breath…

…and Viggo plunged himself deep inside Colum, who cried out with surprise and shock and pain and joy. Viggo left himself in deep for a moment, and Colum could feel his member twitch. Slowly, he pulled out, almost all the way, then shot himself like an arrow again, all the way through his target. And again, and again, the pauses between thrusts shorter each time. 

Viggo’s breathing grew faster, and Colum knew there was no turning back now, no pleading for mercy however the pain blossomed inside him with each piercing. And no desire to plead for mercy, the sensations washing away all the day’s events, and he gave into it, drowned in it, accepted it… 

Viggo grabbed his hands, pinned them by the wrists above his head, as if staking him out for the predators to eat. But the predator was already on him, in him, feasting madly.

“AHH!” Viggo shouted, the warrior’s cry turned into the cry of defeat as his body conquered him, as he shot his seed deep inside Colum, his rhythm shattered, his mind no longer in control of his body, which now pounded away at Colum’s ass with a will of its own, a frenzied need to expel every drop of fluid. 

Colum felt his own eruption building, his own body just as helpless to resist the explosive power of the act. He was powerless to touch himself with Viggo’s hands pinning his. The sensation of his cock rubbing on the soft lining of the cloak was incredible, the slippery silk that had so recently coddled a priest now the receptacle of the fruits of the heretic’s abominable pleasure.

“Yes!” Colum shouted again as he erupted into the cloak. “Attack me! Conquer me!”

“Damn you,” Viggo laughed, because the thought of it made him come all over again, the second climax nearly as painful for his root as it was for poor Colum’s ass. Now both men panted, groaned, helplessly gripped by the duel between their bodies, over which they had no more control than a man might have over a cat.

The waves receded, the twitches still coming here and there, each causing another twitch in the other man. Then they were still, finished, complete in each other. Viggo let go of Colum’s wrists, and both men lay there, spent, sated.

“Now that was a battle you lost,” Viggo whispered in his ear.

Colum smiled. “Did I, lord? I think not.”