Vinland – Northwestern Coast, Early Summer
The longship beached at dawn.
Its hull, dark with sea-wear and crusted brine, scraped across the wet stone of the cove like a blade drawn from a sheath.
Gull cries broke the morning silence, sharp, panicked, before vanishing into the mist that clung low to the water like a funeral shroud.
Nokomis stepped ashore first.
She moved with caution, her fur-lined boots pressing into black sand that once held the footprints of her childhood.
Behind her, six Norsemen followed; grim men bearing axes and hornwood bows, their expressions flat and unreadable.
Blood-bound to protect her, they were used to danger.
But even they slowed as they stepped onto this shore.
The silence here wasn't peace. It was tension.
They had expected to be seen.
Instead, they were being watched.
Nokomis knelt and placed her palm to the earth. Cold. Damp. Familiar.
