Raiders From The Ice Cold East.

"In desperate times where enemies hound you constantly, gold does not matter."

"Your house does not matter."

"Only your life matters."

"Because once that is gone, it's all over."

"There is no revenge."

"No better tomorrow."

"No dawn of a new day."

"Only the cold embrace of death."

"That is certain to get to every man, woman, and child born in this world."

Lee Smith, CEO of Emart and head of House Erendis.

….

Por Sevan, a man in his late forties, pushed his small fishing boat out to sea after checking that he had everything he needed for his journey. He made sure he had his lures, a large net and wooden box to store his catch, an iron fishing spear and an old rod that had been passed through his family for generations.

Also accompanying him in his boat was his eldest son, Tor Sevan, an 18-year-old who had been helping his father out since he was 14. He jumped into the ship as they let it out onto the calm sea, picking up two paddles connected to the small vessel's side. He began rowing out, seeing that the wind was favourable. A small sail was released, helping them pick up speed as they reached their destination within 10 minutes.

Por Sevan routinely sold his catch to the fishmongers at the local town market, who would buy it for a reasonable price and then salt the fish to help preserve it before selling it to others. If he had time, he paid for a small stall and directly sold or traded his produce, using it to barter for money and food, balancing his diet with bread and vegetables.

 While he did not live the most luxurious life, he was happy with it. His family had enough to eat and get by, which was more than some did. Because his village was near the centre of the kingdom, apart from a few tax increases during wartime, there was little that could interrupt their peaceful lives, which was a far cry from the war-torn borders.

Luckily, the Kingdom of Rinada has been at peace for the last few years, bringing a reprieve for its people, who only had to worry about natural disasters like locust plagues or droughts. The realm is peaceful and prosperous, so even the peasants live a good life.

That or the constant threat of raiders and pirates who come from lands and islands with little fertile land, their harsh winters making crops poor, leading to many raiding, looting and pillaging to survive.

"Now, Tor, you'll want to spread the lure like this. This way, the fish will come and gather, and it should only take a minute or two."

Por Severn told his son, teaching him how to fish efficiently by pouring a bunch of lures into the sea and waiting for the fish to bite the bait. For while, spearfishing and fishing with a rod can get you a few fish. Usually enough only to feed your family if you are good enough at it, spreading lure around like Por was doing now was a much better way to fish.

The fish would gather together, and then all you need to do is use the net to catch them while they are all clumped together like penguins huddling together to keep themselves warm.

As the fish gathered, Por Severn cast out his net into the water. It settled and trapped tens of fish who came to eat the lure as he strained his muscles, his face showing the discomfort that wracked his body as he struggled to bring the full net out of the water, needing his son to help him due to the great number of fish that flapped around in the net trying to escape the prison they now found themselves in wanting to return to the open ocean.

"Ahh, well done lad! I'm not as strong as I was when I was younger."

Por sighed and said to his son as he wiped the glistening sweat from his forehead, which reflected the sun's rays as it slowly glided through the blue sky. His other hand traced a scar that went over his leg, the legacy left by his past.

His former life.

However, when he looked out towards the endless horizon, a view he usually enjoyed, his expression stiffened and turned dark. A longboat reminiscent of those used by the Norse when they raided England could be seen crashing through the waves, its dragon prowl splitting the calm apart as it glided majestically through the water as if it were not an object of fear to many.

Rounded shields covered both sides of the ship, with two levels, each filled with rowers. The large ores that shoot from the sides rhythmically dip into the ocean in sync, propelling it swiftly towards Rinada's coastline.

Four more boats soon appeared, each looking the same, each having the same black sails, and each proudly displaying the same emblem, a white twin-headed battleaxe. 

They were the calamity that the people who lived on the water's edge feared the most.

Raiders.

They had to quickly return to warn the village so their lord could send troops to fight them off. However, it could not be guaranteed that their liege lord, Baron Rushe, had enough skilled men to fight off the raiders who fought for a living, even if they were more used to slaughtering untrained militia rather than mail-clad professional soldiers.

The Baron's castle was only half a day's walk from the village around it. A small town had been erected protected by the Baron and his personal retinue of elite professional soldiers who had accompanied him when his own superior sent him to support the king's wars.

This was very common, as it would be normal for powerful nobles to send a vassal in place of themselves when supporting a king's army if called to arms, not wanting to risk themselves in the crucible of war. For ambitious barons and members of the lower nobility who only had maybe a castle, a town, and a few villages to their name, these wars were the perfect chance for advancement.

This is because, unlike commoners and the regular soldiers within the royal army, mainly recruited from the lower classes, they held the status of a noble, so find it far easier to become officers and find success due to their higher level of education, let alone the fact that they usually had a few hundred men to command directly under them to make contributions with and if they could help turn the tide of battle they could turn from a rural baron with little power and influence to a noble who could even create waves within the royal court.

If even talented commoners could become leaders in the royal court, gradually accumulating merits enough to become landed nobles with large fiefs, then there is no reason why the lower nobility who had better starting circumstances couldn't do the same thing.

After all, unlike these commoners, they would find it easier to move around in noble circles and not be looked down upon as much. Often, commoners who became landed nobles or men of influence and power found themselves being suppressed by the old nobility in one way or another.

In Chavaria, both Drusus Dardinius, the legendary conqueror of two kingdoms, and Lucius Aurellion, his successor and consolidator of the empire, had been attacked numerous times throughout their careers. Members of the Chavarian nobility even assassinated Drusus, which led to everyone involved being purged and hunted down by the enraged Chavarian ruler and minister of war.

No one with the last name of any of those nobles survived; even newborns and children were killed, let alone women.

After all, unless new land was gained by conquest, the only way to grant these new up-and-coming commoners lands and titles was to either have it removed from another noble for one reason or another and then given to them or to provide them with some of the king or emperors personal domain.

Few wise kings would do such a thing unless his new vassal was someone he could not be without.

In fact, most of Lucius Aurellion's marquisate in Chavaria was given to him out of the lands of these rebellious and greedy nobles.

When the Chavarian Empire was initially founded, many of the noble houses that once served the two destroyed kingdoms of Pluerus and Nalora surrendered and were willing to serve the new empire. They retained their lands and titles to prevent chaos, which other nations could exploit to take bits of the newly formed empire while it was sending out its armies to suppress these lords, who would fight tooth and nail to keep their ancestral lands. 

But all countries were like this, with the tension between the social classes, as it is human nature to protect what one has gained, no matter how that gain was obtained, whether just or not.

Por Severn had taken over for his son on the ores of the small boat that was only 20 minutes or so from shore. He frantically rowed towards the small bay with its small pier where the fishing boats and two of the Baron's war boats harboured until they were needed, cursing at the wind that seemed to refuse to blow in his favour, making the already fast ships of the raiders, visibly gain on him. Even though they were now sailing the same way, how could the large sail of the much larger ship and its many mighty oarsmen be slower than the dingy-like ship that Por owned, which only had one rower and a small sail?

The war boats moored in the villages bey had been made at great cost to the Baron, who spent years gathering the money to build them and months constructing them, so Por hoped that with these boats here, the Baron would be quick to react if only to save his investment in his newly constructed war fleet.

But 5 boats meant nearly 200 raiders, as each boat could safely carry 40 men and all the arms and supplies they may need for their voyage. The raiders would, at minimum, be clad in leather armour if not mail, and the strong men from the cold east were renowned for their combat strength as many in that cold region have had to hunt to survive, with it even becoming a tradition like it was in Sparta in the days of old for a young man to go out into the wild and hunt a wolf or other wild beast before they could officially come of age.

As in the snowy east, weakness was not tolerated by nature, forcing humans to adapt to the hostile climate and environment and so have become as harsh as the bitter cold they live in for half of the year, barely able to properly farm though compared to the fertile Oaktar Plains the yields of these agricultural endeavours could only be thought of as pitiful producing barely 10-25% of the crops that the geographically gifted Nathia can.

Por raced towards the shore, his calm and long rhythmic strokes speaking of his great experience on the water, which was no less than that of those who came from one of the many great seafaring nations of the world renowned for their maritime power.

As he approached the small pier where all the village's ships docked, he began shouting alongside his son toward a few people on the shore who worked the few man-made salty lakes used to evaporate seawater. The salt was left behind to be harvested and became one of the main exports of the Kingdom of Rinada, helping to create great wealth for the king and his nobles.

 "Raiders are coming!"

"Raiders are coming!"

The father and son shouted warnings to their fellow villagers, who stood still for a second before the message seemed to sink in, and chaos ensued.

Suddenly, as if awoken from a long slumber, the villagers who heard the warning ran around rampantly, warning their neighbours about the impending attack. Only a few minutes behind Por Severn's small fishing boat were the large Viking-like ships whose threat loomed over the village like a grim reaper promising to steal their money and lives. Many began to gather what few possessions they could carry and ran away toward the baron's town, hoping to reach its safe wooden walls before it was too late.

This was because these raiders were particularly vicious when they came as not only did they threaten and steal the peasant's food and belongings but even burned down their houses and took some as slaves to sell off to other countries.

The baron had stationed 20 men in the village to protect his warships. If it were only one ship of raiders, then Por and the other villagers may be tempted to fight as the raiders were primarily driven by profit and valued their lives highly far more than the meagre riches they could obtain from the village so if they killed enough they would escape on their own working with the lord's men the few hundred or so villagers wielding hoes and other agricultural tools may just be able to defeat the raiders even being able to gather and sell the loot gained from them in the town.

Not only did raiders typically have a decent amount of gold on them, but their gear alone could be sold for tens of gold, which is an amount of money most peasants never see.

Unfortunately, there were 200 raiders, so expecting the villagers to be able to fight them off is nothing more than a pipe dream. It is likely that they would all be killed if they fought back, while if they ran, they at least had a chance for survival, no matter how slight that chance may be.

If they were lucky, the raiders would be more interested in raiding their homes than attacking them, giving them a precious head start that would more than likely save the lives of the majority of the villagers. Few raiders from the sea brought horses or cavalry to hunt people down quickly and catch up to them, so if they stayed in the village to loot it, they could safely reach the baron's castle town. 

As soon as he got to the pier, Por jumped out of his boat alongside his son, not even tying it up as it drifted out to sea, having long sent his large catch overboard in an attempt to get the village even a little bit faster as the raiders' ships had already entered the bey. It would only take a few minutes for them to begin landing.

Running to his house, Por picked up a sword in an old leather sheath and quickly buckled it to his belt with practised ease. It was a weapon he had not used in many years but kept in good condition, sharpening and caring for it daily just in case he ever needed one.

He knew just how cruel the world could be and had even taken part in some atrocities himself, which still haunt his dreams to this day, turning them into terrible nightmares.

If worst comes to worst, he could sacrifice himself to fight off the raiders, gaining even a few more seconds for his son and wife to escape to safety.

Por was not always a villager but instead a mercenary, his body and face scarred from the many wounds that he had suffered over the years, though apart from the scar that ran down the side of his face, narrowly missing his chestnut brown eyes, only his wife had seen the others that were scattered over his body.

Drawing the trusty sword that had accompanied him for years, he caressed the razor-sharp steel weapon with affection as he led his wife and son to run towards the Baron's town, holding his wife's hand tightly to ensure she kept up and didn't fall behind.

Looking back, Por could see that the raiders had already landed and were rushing into the now mostly empty village. As soon as they saw the sails, the villagers, knowing they were not traders, ran for their lives. Only a few older people, like the village chief, who no longer had the strength to run away without being caught, stayed as many of the raiders began searching house to house for valuable loot.

 Clutching his sword tightly, the only thing he had time to grab, he turned to run with a tear in his eye, leaving his home behind.

The Baron's men, knowing that the village could not be defended, had long ridden off towards their lord's castle town to warn him of the upcoming attack so he could make preparations.

As long as the people stayed in a walled town for a few days, larger raiding parties usually took a few things from the undefended villages before leaving and returning to the sea with what plunder they could loot, not daring to stay too long in one place as within a day, news of their arrival would become widespread and a vice count or count would gather enough troops to quickly eliminate the raiders so they only dared to stay a few days relying on surprise to raid villages.

Some may ask why people are willing to abandon their possessions and run, but one must remember that you must live before you can enjoy them; money and even a house and land can be reclaimed in the future, but your life….

Once you lose that, it's over.

Por Severn and his family had no choice. They had to get to the town, which was the only way to live safely behind its walls and out of the raiders' clutches, who would barter them like goods at a market.