Chapter 70: Burning the River Lands
Gunnarr stood at the prow of the shallow-drafted knarr, one boot braced upon the dragon-headed rail, pale eyes narrowed against the cold spray.
Behind him, the river wound like a dark ribbon through the green heart of Connacht, dotted with farmsteads and petty trading posts that had never known a terror .
Five ships shadowed his own hulls low in the water from the weight of warriors.
Their oars dipped in silent rhythm, blades biting the river’s skin, leaving scarcely a ripple. Only the faint hiss of iron against the water betrayed them.
At last, they rounded a bend, and Gunnarr lifted a hand. The boats drifted to a halt. Across the meadow stood a village of wattle and daub houses, ringed by crude palisades.
Smoke rose from cook fires, women moved between byres, and cattle lowed behind split-rail fences.
Gunnarr gave a low signal. His Húskarlar tensed, knuckles white on sword hilts and axes. Then he dropped his hand.
With a shout like a crack of thunder, the Norse surged ashore. Shields locked, spears thrust forward, they poured across the muddy bank in a living wall.
The village defenders were pitifully few; graybeards with wood axes, a handful of youths clutching rusty swords.
They rallied at the gate, eyes wide with horror as the shield-wall bore down.
The clash was brutal, brief. Gunnarr’s men smashed through the fence like a flood through reeds.
Spears found bellies, axes cracked skulls. Blood ran in dark rivulets down the trodden grass.
Gunnarr himself split one boy nearly in two, then stepped past the writhing corpse without a backward glance.
He bellowed for his men to fan out, his voice ringing clear above the screams.
“Drive them from their halls! Take their stores! Burn the rest!”
By midday, the village was a ruin. Flames roared through thatch, sending columns of smoke clawing at the sky.
Women were dragged to the riverside, bound and weeping. Grain sacks and bronze cups were loaded by the dozens onto the ships, alongside coiled ropes, good iron tools, anything that could be carried.
Gunnarr walked through the wreckage, wiping his blade on a torn cloak. A calf bleated piteously beside its dead mother, throat opened by a raider’s knife to deny pursuers meat.
Nearby, two of his Húskarlar argued over a small cask. One upended it and gold coins tumbled out, catching the sun like sparks. Gunnarr smiled thinly.
“Fill the hulls, and fill them quickly,” he ordered. “We strike again at dawn, up the river toward Maigh Cuilinn. These dogs will send riders begging aid from Conchobar, but he is too busy clawing at Dún Ailline’s stones to save them.”
One of his ship captains, a lean Dane with scars across both cheeks, chuckled darkly. “And by the time he marches here, he’ll find nothing but ash and empty fields.”
“Aye,” Gunnarr agreed. “And by then, his own levy will be half-starved, paying twice for every loaf of bread that once grew here.”
They moved on. Over the next days, Gunnarr’s band scoured the river valley like locusts. Villages were struck in turn; some tried to resist and were slaughtered outright.
Others flung open gates in desperate surrender, but still found themselves stripped bare of every pig, every jewel, every maiden worth the taking.
Each night the ships sat low with fresh plunder, while the Norse camped in small fortified rings upon the riverbanks, feasting on stolen cattle. Their fires lit the dark waters for miles.
And each night Gunnarr looked to the east, toward Dún Ailline, and wondered how many of Conchobar’s petty lords were already cursing his name for dragging them into this war, when their own lands now lay naked to the wolf’s tooth.
In his heart, Gunnarr did not care. This was the old way, the true way. The weak fed the strong, and the gods sorted the rest.
So long as his ships ran heavy with silver and women, and his men roared their bloody oaths beneath the banners of Vetrúlfr and Ármóðr, all was as it should be.
Gunnarr was not the only one razing the river lands of Ériu with iron and flame. Each Jarl and Thegn, which swore oaths to Vetrúlfr that were not with him at Dún Ailline led their own warbands and fleets across the lands of Connacht.
50 ships became smaller fleets of various sizes. Each carrying enough men to raid, but not lay siege, nor wage war against a field armor of proper size. They were swift as a pack of wolves, and hungry like starving jackals.
They raided, razed, and plundered across Connachts’ fertile valleys. By the sword and axe, they took all which held value and burned the rest.
But what the Christians failed to understand was that this wasn’t just a war to strike terror into the hearts of their own.
It was a war to bring new blood back to Ísland, Vestmannaeyjar, and Færeyjar.
Blood that would birth and nourish a new generation of warriors to stand as the spear wall against the never ending onslaught of Christ and his zealots which slaughtered and burned in his name.
But nobody understood this. Not really… Blinded by past raids; unorganized and instinctive. They believed that the Norsemen were simply doing what they had always done.
Seize that which was valuable to them through barbarism and leave the rest in ruin. No care, no long-term strategic thinking, simply the acts of savages.
But they were deceived. This campaign of razing was being done on a scale never seen before, and it was being done in a way that left the lands barren and hard to sow once more.
This is what went unnoticed by the Petty Kings of Connacht, Ériu and beyond. This is what went unnoticed by Rome and all its glory.
They saw only flames dancing on the horizon; never grasping the cold, patient hand that guided them.
Fields salted by fear, children stolen to cradle new tongues. A future stolen in silence, as deliberate as any monk’s script upon parchment.