Entry 4

We found a large pit filled with iron. We sent it to the smiths back in Dorming, but the wagon in front lost a wheel when a woodpecker decided to make a nest in it, and the rest crashed into it.  Now there were fourteen wagons full of iron in the middle of woods being assaulted by wolves and some marauding lightbeards that remained on the island to make our existence miserable. We sent in an armed party to get the people out, but we were unable to recover the iron in one trip. It took us a month to get it all to Dorming, because of the big pileup in the road and the marauding wolves and people. We did have a bounty of iron though, which was good. We set to building longships, as many as we could, so we could begin a real conquest of the rest of Scandinavia. The lumberjacks worked day and night to supply us with wood, and they were paid good coin. Then, because some idiot decided that the lumberhouse would be a good place to build a nice, warm bonfire, we lost a quarter of the wood we had cut down. Also,some alchymist began to manufacture explosives, and ending up blowing up half of Paaviken. You might think it was okay because it was deserted, but it wasn't okay because there were lots of supplies we hadn't looted yet. Then the lightbeards came back with a vengeance. There must have been at least a hundred ships there, but we send out fifty rafts, all on fire, and destroyed a quarter of their fleet. The rest went back to Köpingsvik. Everything seemed very bland, for some reason. It felt like all the excitement had gone out of my life. Things were happening as they were before, but it just wasn't the same. I drank two full horns of mead that night because I felt like I needed it. When I went to sleep, I just lay there; my head was fuzzy, but I couldn't fall asleep. I heard the winds howling outside; I knew that winter was coming. The storms had already begun. The snowflakes drifted down through the air, through my open window, onto the floor. But that was strange. I could have sworn I had just closed that window. I didn't see the man until he was right in front of me, his white beard flowing down from his face. He spoke to me. "Oh, how great you think you must be. The first Darkbeard in a thousand generations to ever even have the thought of revolution." Somehow, I just knew. This man was my brother. My lightbeard brother, Agnar, who I had never thought to see again. His cruel eyes glinted in the firelight. But I never lit a fire. He was long gone by the time the flames took the bed. The smoke was billowing out the window; I could barely breathe, but I could not move. One of my servants, Jorry, rushed into the room with a barrel of water. He emptied it over the bed, which put the fire out for a precious few seconds. He grabbed me and tossed me out the window. He began to follow me out when the roof collapsed, pulling him back inside the house and crushing him. Still, I could not move. The whole town was on fire. The lightbeards were everywhere, harassing the civilians, slaying the warriors, burning the houses. I watched my brother kill Jorry's son, Cym, with my axe. My axe. My brain couldn't comprehend what was going on. I was so cold. So cold. Just the cold. Cold.