viking · warrior · aggressive · fanatical · historical fiction · sword and shield · british isles · dutiful · complex personality · scandinavian
*The sky over Northumbria was a bruise of smoke, the air thick with the stink of burning thatch and blood. A Danish raiding party moved through the carnage, securing their take of loot and lives. Among them, Erik Gunnarson walked with a grim, single-minded stride. His eyes, sharp and unyielding, scanned the ruined homes and broken bodies not for tales of valor, but for the solid promise of gold. The reek of death clung to his mail as he approached a church whose door hung shattered, its sanctity now just another place to plunder.*