Viking: Master of the Icy Sea

Chapter 136: Harpoon And Javelin

Ch 136: Harpoon And Javelin

Listening to Bjorn’s words, Helgi did not refute.

According to the custom at sea, the captain’s authority was unquestionable; in extreme cases, certain sailors disrupting order could be sentenced to hanging.

At dawn on the seventh day, the lookout in the square sterncastle suddenly shouted:

“Look at that spot!”

The sea was covered with floating ice, the cloud layer was very low, and a hazy dark shadow appeared in the distance in the sky; it was a flock of migratory birds.

Realizing that land was near, Bjorn arranged for the sailors to row the oars. After sailing for two hours, an endless ice field appeared on the port side, with white cliffs reaching into the sky, and floating ice of various sizes on the sea.

“Slow down, don’t hit those ice floes!”

Bjorn ran to the bow, warning the helmsman at the stern to avoid the occasional ice floes.

At three in the afternoon, the Explorer entered the nearest fjord. The keel crushed the thin ice with a crisp sound. They found a tundra in a sheltered place, with arctic fox tracks scattered nearby. As soon as they landed, the sailors used oars to set up temporary tents and cast fishing nets in the shallow water, attempting to supplement fresh meat.

While they were laughing and fighting, Helgi picked up a pinch of mud and whispered to Bjorn:

“The soil fertility is too poor, unsuitable for growing crops; it’s far worse than Northern Europe. We must find a more suitable place.”

After resting for a day, the Explorer sailed south along the coastline, bypassed the southern tip, and found some greenery in the depths of a fjord on the southwest coast.

Grassland?

Bjorn laughed loudly. Even if crops could not be grown, at least they could raise cattle and sheep for a living.

He maneuvered the Explorer to dock on the shore, chose a suitable sheltered place to build a camp, and because of a lack of timber, could only use stones to build the walls, with turf covering them to serve as a roof.

Climbing to the top of the fjord, Bjorn looked out at the endless white wasteland and the scattered green patches interspersed within it, and decided to name his new territory.

“Let’s call it Greenland（Grnland, meaning green island）.”

Noticing the others’ doubts, Bjorn explained as follows—a good name could attract more immigrants.

Helgi: “I don’t think it’s very useful. Britain and Normandy have large tracts of fertile land waiting for reclamation and are the preferred destinations for immigrants. You’ve worked hard for all these years, but Iceland’s total population is only one thousand, of which thirty percent are purchased slaves. Greenland is located west of Iceland, so the population it attracts will be even smaller.”

Suddenly, a sailor responsible for scouting the inland area ran over, holding up a half-meter-long milky-white tooth. “Chief, there are large numbers of walruses on the nearby beach, far more than in Iceland.”

In the Medieval period, ivory was an absolute luxury good, used to make canes, jewelry boxes, chess sets, and various high-end ornaments. Western Europe and Northern Europe lacked elephants, so walrus tusks were used as a substitute.

Bjorn gathered twenty sailors, armed with crossbows and javelins, and ran all the way. After crossing the hillside, they found thousands of grayish-brown walruses gathered on the distant beach, like undulating groups of rocks. The salty sea breeze swept across their thick wrinkled skin, causing a series of snorts.

“We’ve struck it rich! We’ve really struck it rich!”

Bjorn signaled for everyone to approach slowly, killed eight of the outermost walruses with a volley of shots, then used a knife to peel off the leather, collecting ivory and fat. After much work, they returned to the shore camp with the spoils of war.

The next day, Bjorn urged the sailors to get up quickly, but a group of indigenous people wearing animal hide cloaks appeared outside the camp. They had rough skin, yellowish faces, and gestured wildly at the Vikings.

After a few minutes, Helgi frowned. “This is their hunting ground; it looks like they’re trying to chase us away.”

At a rough glance, there were more than two hundred people on the opposite side, armed with bone fish spears, bone javelins, and a half-moon-shaped stone knife.

Bjorn didn’t want a conflict with the locals, so he gave them some light beer and iron knives as gifts.

Soon, the locals drank three barrels of light beer. The chieftain belched, gestured for a long time, and seemed to be proposing a transaction, exchanging hunting rights for the Vikings’ drinks and knives.

“Haha, of course. Next time, I’ll bring more beer and iron tools to exchange for furs, walrus tusks, and animal fat.”

Bjorn gestured for the locals to check the quality of the iron knives and silently calculated the profit of this business.

Importing a barrel of beer from Tyne, exchanging it here for furs and other goods, and then selling them back to Tyne, could earn at least a 10-20 times profit!

The enormous success overwhelmed Bjorn’s sanity, making him dizzy. Tenfold, then a hundredfold, and so on—wouldn’t he eventually be richer than the king?

Helgi tugged at the braid of his beard. “Uh, it’s not that simple. Vig once mentioned something: in the short term, the greater the supply of a certain commodity in the market, the lower the price. He called it ‘economics’.”

“Then sell to areas further south, York, Londinium, Flanders, the Mediterranean!” Bjorn waved his hand, regarding this as his life’s work. “Make money, buy more ships, make more money. One day, when I earn more money than my father’s treasury, we’ll see what he has to say.”

Helgi was speechless. “As Ragnar’s son, you possess more than most people in the world. Is this necessary?”

Bjorn: “I am Bjorn first, and Ragnar’s offspring second. I’ve worked hard for all this, just so that one day, when people introduce me, they’ll first think of ‘Iron-boned’ Bjorn, not ‘Ragnar’s second son’ Bjorn.”

Being the son of a legendary figure is both an honor and a burden that is hard to bear. Bjorn vowed to escape his father’s shadow and, through his own efforts, become another legend.

These words also touched Helgi.

In recent years, whenever he met new Vikings, they would always say, “You’re the brother-in-law of the Serpent of the North? How did the Serpent of the North manage to annihilate the main force of West Francia in one battle?”

All this made Helgi helpless. He joined Bjorn’s expedition not for money, but to prove that he was a true Viking warrior.

As the two sighed, they suddenly heard a commotion in the distance. The indigenous people abandoned the beer and knives and retreated like a tide.

What’s going on?

Bjorn questioned the sailors and received a ridiculous answer—the indigenous people were frightened by the sheep carried by the Explorer. They had never seen sheep before and thought they were some kind of cursed creature, so they fled in panic.

“Haha, these barbarians are ignorant and make a fuss over nothing.”

A sailor mocked the appearance of the indigenous people, and the next moment, he suddenly found a bone spear sticking out of his chest, the tip still dripping blood.

“Enemy attack!”

In the chaos, forty Vikings were ambushed by an enemy several times their number, with more than half of them killed or injured. Bjorn hastily fled to the Explorer, ordering the sailors to weigh anchor and set sail.

Looking at the indigenous people who were shouting, Bjorn fell into a rage. He pointed at the shore and shouted, “If you have the guts, don’t run! Just wait until I call for reinforcements!”

It was already late August, autumn was approaching, and the North Sea waves were becoming increasingly frequent. Bjorn planned to come back next year to get even.

“Those fools who don’t know when to die, I’ll just borrow some money from Vig, buy four carracks at once, recruit two to three hundred raiders, and I don’t believe I can’t handle these rebellious commoners.”

Meanwhile, Vig in the Northern Border sneezed. “Who’s cursing me?”

After complaining a few words, he collected his thoughts and led his royal guard into Glasgow, just in time to encounter a sudden incident.