They came over the horizon in tall ships of emerald shadow, their monstrous dragonheads cutting fierce silhouettes against the ragged sea. They had rotten teeth and sailboats of rotten wood but their eyes were flint and burning steel in their sunken sockets. These were the men of old; wild warrior men of the northern seas, ruthless in their desperate search for new lands, new sights, and new treasure.
They came ashore in a rocky cove of dank, moss-eaten boulders and gray slabs of rainwater. High above, the cliffs carved stark white monoliths into the churning foggy mist. Crabs scuttled over their feet, slipping and slapping over the ashen rocks. And all the while, the rain beat down, relentless and unyielding, as the world turned to green and gray beneath its cruel and steady pitter-patter.
Despite the fresh torrent of water tumbling from the overcast sky, the only smell that engulfed these warriors was that of fish and salt: a bitter tang and a biting sour tinge. They trudged miserably through the battering gale; wind smacking their hollow cheeks and swollen ears and buffeting the great red sails of their beastlike longships.
Soon they were wet to the bone, shuddering with a terrible, clutching chill and unloading the dragon boats sluggishly with leaden limbs. This new land was surely not the paradise of the old tales but a gruesome and ghastly new one. Anything could lurk beyond those hulking cliffs; mermaids with lithe silver tails and snarling teeth or dragons made of blazing crimson jewels. There could be vast cities built entirely of sand, or blue ice palaces that shone with crystal light, or even a turquoise lagoon bristling with fairies and elves dipping into its cool morning glory.
There could be anything.
But for these men there was only a dark craggy beach, and each other. There were no bright yellow stars dripping with droplets of golden ink or tales of heaven and hell and demons long forgotten amidst the winds of time. There was no magic or impossible things hidden in the deep well of the world. There was just this. And it was horrible.
The rain and the sleet and the blasting, raging wind roaring in the black. The creeping, violent darkness, the heat of the world being sucked out by this bleak sodden shore. Behind the behemoth cliffs lay desolate moorland, colourless and fading into the rushing storm. There were sleepy villages and sleepy kings, slumbering under that mountain sky.
And so the Vikings, with all the fire of the northern oceans, waged war on that bleak, bleak sky and burned and burned until the whole world was in flames. They pillaged and slashed and killed until the great highlands and the rocky beaches were scattered with skulls and flooding, boiling blood. But still it was not enough, for the cold continued to slither into their raw and wild hearts, leaving them no choice but to continue tearing and dancing and burning, brighter and brighter, until they exploded.
And far to the south, men of noble crests and bloody hands held up the red quivering flag of war and danced the same ferocious dance as their northern brethren all over that gore-soaked battlefield. Meanwhile, in the wide deserts of sand, to the vast deserts of snow, blood writhed over yellow and white land, staining and cloying the sweet night air. The entire world was ablaze in the fires of war; a fire of a thousand years and a thousand deaths. And every time they tried to stop, every time they glanced down at that thick sloshing river of scarlet, at those families torn to ghostly shreds, the cold just came creeping back, that ancient evil that corrupts even the most well-intended of hearts.
And so it continued, for a thousand years more; first with swords then with rifles then with enormous war machines turning the earth to dust, and infernos so great they could block out the sun for days. And so it continued, with men by the millions slaughtered and tossed into mass graves and streams that always tasted faintly of blood. And so it continued, and will continue, until the world ends by its hand and the icy monster within the fire is finally quenched.