The small child suddenly awoke. He stumbled to his feet amidst the tangle of wild forest growth. With the sunlight barely glinting through the canopy of the forest, he glanced off to his left and saw his knife, broken in pieces, the Life Force slowly reclaiming the materials. He reached up to feel his forehead and brought his hand back down streaked with red. His hair was matted together with scabbed blood.
Four horsemen clambered into the small clearing. They were wearing full sets of armor, their coat of arms seemingly English. All had swords strapped to their thighs and the apparent leader carried a crossbow. The other three wielded large blazing torches, weapons unsheathed.
“Who goes there?!” The leader shouted, and c***ed his crossbow as the young lad came into aim.
“Hvad sagde du? Jeg taler ikke din tunge,” the boy mumbled, looking confused as his head injury began to shroud his senses.
“Speak clearly my son, I cannot understand you,” the head knight said.
“Jeg er faret vild,” the boy said before falling back to the ground. The knights lifted the boy up and laid him on the back of their horses, then rode away, away from the burning village and towards the monastery, hoping for a chance to save this young berserker's soul.
The monastery was far enough inland that it had remained unharmed. This was unusual however. The barbarians in their animal form usually destroyed everything they could find, as well as everything they couldn’t. This must have been the boy’s first raid, or he would not have blacked out. The monks slowly nursed the boy back to health, for he had a very serious head injury from his reckless, animalistic charge into the woods. His forehead was split down the middle, exposing a blank streak on the top of his head, where fair hair should have been.
Time passed, and though he still couldn’t speak the language, he developed a relationship with some of the monks. He discovered some English foods he liked. He was just beginning to feel comfortable.
However, he knew he didn’t belong. Once a berserker always a berserker, a brave warrior of the sea. He would die in battle, like his father and his father before that. If he did not then he would never enter Valhöll, and would be stuck for eternity in Niflheim, lorded over by Hel. He had been raised to live a life of battle, to give honor to Odin’s name in conquest. These monks were trying to sooth his spirit, to make him weak like them. But he would not let this happen. The boy knew he had helsótt, a fatal injury, so time was running out. Unless he died in battle, there was no hope for him. Knowing the monks would never respect his beliefs enough to fight back, he reluctantly decided that he must leave the monastery.
He woke early the next morning, snuck into the food stores, and filled a sack with as much bounty as he could carry, then headed towards the forest in which he had been found. As nightfall approached, infection from the scar on his scalp discolored a vein steadily downward toward his core. He howled before collapsing to the ground. When next he awoke he had been returned to the monastery with a worried monk leaning over him, wiping his face with a damp rag. He lunged out, attempting to tackle the monk, but before he could even leave the bed, two unseen monks restrained him. He struggled fiercely but he could not get an advantage over the monks. He stopped, not because he choose too, but because the pain pulled him back into darkness.
By the time his eyes opened again, infection had spread across his face. He felt immense pain, but was more determined than ever. Time was running out. He tried again to stand, but in attempting to right himself, felt his wrists tied to the wall and ankles tied to the bed frame. He painstakingly chewed through his wrist restraints, but blacked out again before freeing his ankles.
He awoke again, unsure of how much time had passed. After confirming he was alone, he finally released the ankle straps. Without food this time, he stumbled out of the monastery as sneakily as he could manage.
Once outside the walls, he raced toward the woods for the second time. Having overcome the deep woods, nearing a clearing, he climbed the last, great tree, to avoid detection. His only hope was that his raiding party was still about, fighting inland, and would find him. He would drop from the tree in battle stance and fight to the death. An honorable death, as a warrior. Not as a coward, a nobody in the eyes of Odin, sentenced to freeze forever in Niflheim stuck in an embrace with Hel. But no worthy warriors appeared. His pain grew and grew and the inescapable darkness returned. He remained hidden from all, wedged high in the branches of Yggdrasil. His body was left to decay through the ages. His spirit would never get to Valhöll, but he is part of the tree of life now, the link between the nine worlds.