6 LAND AHOY
Murmuring broke out among the group of boys and girls bound together in the small tent the moment the Viking warrior left them with the bound newcomer. Were their eyes deceiving them? Wasn't this the beggar? Didn't they all see his lifeless form being dragged away some hours ago? How was he still alive? Had the Vikings made a mistake earlier and thought him dead when he was still alive? They must have because the person Infront of them was far from Dead. Bruised and bloody Maybe, but definitely alive.
Joda lay on the floor for a long time. He was unaware of the murmuring going on around him and was more interested in his weak form. Every inch of his body hurt, and he felt incredibly weak. This body was pretty thin as well. It looked malnourished and weak. After some hours on the floor, Joda managed to crawl his way into a corner by the tent entrance and lay there alone for the remainder of the night.
Nobody spoke to him and he spoke to no one. Around dawn, a group of Viking warriors came to collect them out of the tent and into the village in a long line, flanked by numerous Vikings on all sides. It was during this time that Joda finally got a proper look at the village he was in.
Houses were on fire and little children wept for their mothers. As the group of soon-to-be slaves followed the lead warrior out of the village, Joda saw some men and women hiding in their rooms. Some bold men came out to watch the group of young ones being sent away but all kept their silence.
As the large procession made up of Viking soldiers and slaves filed out of the village, the prince noticed some wailing women being restrained by their husbands. A look at the tear-streaked faces of the captured people he was with told him all he needed to know. The crying women being restrained were most probably the mothers of some of the people he was bound along with.
What a sad place this world was. Joda thought as he saw one of the crying women being chased away by an angry Viking as she made to get close to the leaving group. The woman had been pushed away roughly by the soldier but she wouldn't leave so the soldier had hit her across the face. One of the captured boys had yelled and struggled against his bonds but he had been shown a shiny sword, had gotten some words whispered into his ears and he had immediately gone deathly pale and silent.
Joda had wondered where his host's mother was. He had looked at all the faces he could see but none had paid him any particular interest. Had his host's mother been killed? He wondered, or was he so beaten that his own mother couldn't recognize him? All the same, Joda had moved on with the rest of the boys. They weren't many. They numbered 50 in total. 30 boys and 20 girls. He knew this because the soldiers had counted them that morning. All of the captured people were either in their late teens or were early adults including his host who looked to be in his late teens.
The group of warriors and slaves had journeyed for a long time after they left the village behind. They had gone through a dense forest, then a long plain moore. The warriors, almost all of whom were journeying on foot apart from the seniors who mounted horses had been grumpy the whole morning. They complained and beat the children for any little thing as they traveled.
Joda had been beaten a lot by the soldiers due to his slowness. He was still weak from the previous day's beating but the soldiers had pretended they did not know that and had continued beating him all the way from the village to the shores of the sea. It was almost mid-day when the group heard the crashing sound of waves against rocks in the distance. The Vikings had been joyous as they saw their large ship anchored on the raging sea, whiles the group of bound teens had been scared.
This was where their territory ended. They had never gone beyond the sea in their lives. Their parents had always warned them about the dangerous Vikings who used the sea as their battleground and who will kill anyone that entered their territory, be it on land or the sea so the children had made it a habit to stay far away from the sea, but here they were today, with said Vikings, preparing to journey on the sea into Viking territory.
Their lives wouldn't be theirs anymore after they reached that land. They would really be slaves in a foreign land. How they wished they could change their fate, but alas, they were powerless to do anything, and when the Vikings pushed them and shouted at them to follow them into the huge ship, they complied.
Joda had been screaming in his head for the voice to deliver him from such a cruel fate but either the voice was powerless to do anything or it just didn't want to help the prince, nothing happened. On their way to the ship, Joda had tried to resist the Vikings urging them on but a heavy shield to his face had changed his mind and he had been silent ever since. There was no way out of this fix and the prince knew it.
He possibly couldn't fight all the hundreds of Vikings on this ship by himself. He would lose and probably get killed. He was tired of death already and he most definitely did not want to get back to that dark hell. How bad could slavery be? Back in his father's kingdom, slaves had been well taken care of.
A slave could even buy his freedom, request a new master, and inherit property as well as marry from his master's household. Slavery couldn't be that bad. He would go to this new land and just buy his freedom after working for a while. How difficult could that be? The prince wondered.
The journey had started smoothly. The soldiers had also treated them like humans by bringing them food and water twice a day and this had cemented Joda's belief that slavery in this foreign land was almost the same as on his land. The journey had started being rough on the second day at sea.
It had rained and stormed for three days straight and the Vikings, busy with manning the oars and other duties on the ship had either forgotten about their captives below or just didn't care about them enough to bring them their meals. The group of soon-to-be slaves had starved for three days until finally, a soldier had visited them with food and 'good news.
"The storm has cleared and we have sighted home. It shouldn't be long until we dock. You lot will soon be out of this place. No more lazying about for any of you. It will all be about the tough life now. Enjoy your last meal lads. I don't know when you'll have the next one." The man said with a chuckle and left the stunned group behind. 'Will this really be as easy as I thought it would?, Or should I start devising an escape plan?' a confused prince Joda asked himself.
