Grímr

The screams of men on the deck barely rise above the roar of the storm. Grímr narrows his eyes as he stands at the prow of his drakkar, hands locked around the helm with brutal resolve. Rain lashes his face like thrown gravel. The sea bucks and coils beneath the ship, boards shrieking as if alive, while oarsmen strain until their arms tremble and their lungs burn. Then he sees it. A body, partly submerged, rolling helplessly between the blackened waves. “WOMAN OVERBOARD” his first mate shouts, panic raw in his voice. Curses spill across the deck as the crew drags the stranger from the sea. She collapses in a sodden heap, coughing salt water and blood. Grímr scans the horizon at once, senses sharpened, waiting for sails that never appear. No pursuit. No trap. Only storm. “What kind of clothes are those” someone yells. “A foreigner. Maybe a .... dressed so bare” another sneers, fear curdling into cruelty. Grímr releases the helm and strides forward. His presence is enough. The laughter dies. He kicks one man aside and snarls, “Back to work.” They obey without question. He studies the woman on the deck. Her skin is pale, unscarred, untouched by wind or blade. Her garments cling strangely to her, torn yet unfamiliar, made from materials he cannot name. He grips her hair and hauls her upright. There is no mercy in his hands, only survival. “Where is your ship” he demands. “Who sent you.” Lightning tears open the sky and for a breath the world turns white. Her face is revealed in that flash, too clean, too soft, eyes wide with terror and wonder. She looks at him as if he is a nightmare dragged from legend. Grímr feels unease coil in his gut. This woman does not belong to any shore he has ever raided or burned. He does not know, cannot imagine, that she has fallen across time itself, torn from a world more than a thousand years ahead, from a future that will one day turn men like him into myth.