10 The journey across the narrow sea 3

All the great yarl capitals had a squad of sentries that watched the borders.The sentries were personal guards of the yarl and had many expeditions and raids on their back.To be a sentry was a great honor but also a sign of strength. The squad did not need approval of yarl to act. They even had sovereignty in times of invasion , war , where they carried assassinations of the enemy military commanders and gathered intel of enemy forces and so on. Also the minimum requirement for the post was cultivation of royal noble and that meant they were equivalent to Preatorian guards in Great eagle empire or Eagle guards of great Quezacoatl empire in the far west .The only problem was that since area of provinces was to big sentry parties only had up to 10 members .In some extreme situations more sentries gathered .All forty people that escorted Ivar and his father to Skadi temple were also sentries and Ivar knew many of the men in his father s squad.

But this time nothing was heard from them. "What to do? what to do ? We need to buy time."captain said and than came to young man on the stern of the ship.

"Sorry boy i do this for the empire" and attacked unsuspecting commoner ."We need to give them something to eat " and than when his sword pierced the body of the victim he used all the strength he had and tossed body 50 meters from ship.

"What a great strength but what despicable character " Ivar sighted.

He knew that soon he will also be on the menu for the dragons . All the commoners were going to die and become diversion .

But strange thing was - nobody protested . Well it was useless to protest when on the ship of 80men there was a squad of 60 berserkers and captain .And by design or luck all commoners were placed far from each other.

"This cunning fox, he knew something like this could happen on the sea and placed us commoners on the sides so we can not rise to challenge his rule.What a despicable strategy , now i even think that they did not need more people they were in need for more meat. " Ivar thought as his eyes had a glint of hate in them.

Floki did not know anything about this.Remember this was his first mission and although the training camp was really hard and bloody he thought that his service would be the service to the people.How wrong he was.Berserkers and military were despots that ravaged poor commoners. Even Ivar did not know the extend of earthly burdens of the common people.In Dagger tip fortress he experienced it to some degree but never like this .So now the ugly truth was out - in the eye of the powerful commoner life was worth less than copper.The rest of the commoners with hate in the eyes watched berserker commander as he was selecting his next target.

Old commander decided to slaughter from the stern of the ship to the cabin.This was sa bit lucky for Ivar as he was on the bench near the decorated cabin.

Then he saw her . She had stunning blue eyes and hair that had so much light in it that rivaled the sun.His jaw dropped .This was world topping beauty a beauty for witch the wars would be waged on so much blood would be spilled that would fill the ocean .But still it would be worth of it just to see her smile , her eyes her lips.

Ivar was in his fantasy for 10 seconds and than he remembered something and his look in an instant went dark.I had a girl like that , only that girl was never mine to begin it. I guess since she is as beautiful as that bitch is she probably has despicable character as her .

On the side of the girl were two battle maidens .They had great cultivation but since Ivar was weak he could not figure out how strong they are .Maybe they were in the realm after the royal noble? Maybe Royal king?

One of them at first saw lust in Ivars eyes and was ready to act .But than as the lust faded and darkness descended she was puzzled by the sudden change .

"Every time young princess goes out she brings such yearning from common folk so usually i have to show commoners that they are not worthy .This little boy would have been great as example but why did the lust disperse in just a second, this is so strange . "

Girl started talking " My lady name is Cecilia of the Lorthbrok imperial clan.I am on the mission to Daggertip fortress for my father Sigurd the First of his name great emperor of Northern wolf empire. Your sacrifice will not be in vain , i promise to give each of your loved ones 2 golden dragons and safe keeping in next two years and than she bowed ."

Common folk never saw royals and most shocking they never saw person of noble origins bow .This had the desired effect as all the common folk accepted their fate and even were willing to die for " important mission ".

Since situation was desperate Ivar opened his mead bottle the gift of old beggar and took one long sip. He two was ready to die since he did not have the strength to resist superior soldiers .As the strong mead traveled to his mouth into his stomach he noticed something different . He knew just how far he was from the main sail. Than he turned around to captain and he knew just how far captain was . Than when he looked at paddle he knew what kind of paddle it is and even when it was made ".What is happening is this mead to strong? It makes me see illusions right away ." he wanted to be drunk when his executioner came but seriously he did not expect something like this .When he looked at the sails closely information about it surfaced in his brain :" Great long ship sail , made from fur of fire drake , rune-work was done by great scribe temple of Mimir ".Than he looked to his toga and same thing happened:" Toga made for an ice cotton , given to Ivar from Ice temple of Skadi , left sleeve damaged by mountain boar ".Than he finally looked into the mead and than his jaws went down and almost touched the boat floor it said :"Mead of poetry , gift given by the Odin the wanderer to those he deemed worthy of his powers ."

"Odin the old father? when did i meet him? He was that beggar but why ? His power should be greatest in the Northern empire , why would he be that beggar? "

But now was not time for thinking about Odin .The death was close as more and more common people were now left to drift upon the sea .This was her highness bidding. In exchange for those 2 coins their family would get They needed to drift on the sea and wait for the dragons .Old bersreker captain would find some barrels and use them to put commoners in.

In those 2-3 minutes princess took notice of him .He was young boy that had looks had the stature but his strange behavior was off the charts . He jumped than turned around to the sail and looked closely at it than jumped again looked to his paddle and was clearly astonished ,but why? It was just a regular paddle than he looked and his bottle and went even more crazy his jaw was so low like he saw the most astonishing thing then he went silent for 30 seconds or more .Than he jumped again .Princess taught that he was crazy and he went crazy when she said that commoners would die. She felt sorry for him ."This poor little thing" she thought . "Well i am noble from royal family and my life has more meaning than yours .I would not mind to sacrifice even more useless boys like you to achieve my goals. "

While she was doing her fake lamentation boy jumped again . He turned around and looked at her .Than he just moved his head sideways 2 or three times as sign of disapproval .He patted the bench Floki on his right side than with all his might said :"See you again your despicable majesty ! "

That one word "despicable" echoed in her mind as two battle maidens jumped and slowly were going to execute the boy.She , her royal highness was so enraged by that word ."Who do you think you are to say those things ! I am royal princess of Lorthbrok clan and my pride will not be trampled upon by trash".

"Make it slow " she said to her battle maidens and her enraged face changed to one of deep satisfaction.

The boy was supposed to run but instead he was going towards the two battle maidens.

Now princess was again infuriated." This little shit was crazed by his death so he wanted to anger me and have some satisfaction in his death .I fell to this stupid shits trap" she grunted and had hit the floor of the ship with her beautiful legs as she was trying to went some of her new found anger .

Than something even more strange happened . Boy removed rope from his pocket and ran to one of the scorpios.

"What is he trying to do now , whatever he does my maidens will kill him, hahaha " and finally sinister smile had left her cute mouth .

"Oh my beautiful majesty , let me repeat myself My despicable majesty see you again ." he wrapped arrowhead with rope and with scorpio aiming to the sky let arrowhead loose.

"NOooo "was heard from the ship as Ivar was pulled by the rope and was flying up to the sky.

"How the hell you let that little shit escape . I wanted to to torture him . I Wanted for him to beg to be food for the dragons why this happened " voice echoed on the deck as common folk

changed their looks .She was perfect on the outside but sure a viper from the inside .They now knew that 2 gold pieces were just a ploy for her amusement .So they jumped from the deck embracing death.

This was not according to plan . They needed to dispose a a living commoner periodically to buy time but now all that went with the drain.And it was all done by 15 year old boy .He even smirked at princess and called her despicable . How dared he !

The mass of black shadows were still on move so captain just ordered his man to row because he knew that he may need to sacrifice some of them ..