"Saga" - Chapter 11, part 1
Content - Brokeback AuAu fic taking place in the Viking era (Scandinavia, ca AD 850). No warnings for this chapter. This chapter rated NC-17.
Disclaimer - The original Ennis and Jack who inspired this fic do not belong to me, but to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I intend no disrespect and make no profit.
A/Ns - In another time and place than in this fic, “Chapter 11” may refer to a time-out, and a temporary protection from those with demands and rights on someone. Though the analogy is far from perfect, it still seems fitting that the content of this particular Saga installment comes in its Chapter 11. It also offers Einnis and Eoin a good place to actually take a time-out - for I will not be able to update the fic again for 2 weeks or more due to pressing RL commitments.
Links to previous chapters follow after the cut. Explanations of names and terms follow after each chapter. Thank you to Soulan who beta’d this chapter.
Links to previous chapters:
Chapter 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/22271.html
Chapter 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/32308.html
Chapter 3: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33130.html
Chapter 4: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/33946.html
Chapter 5: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34153.html
Chapter 6: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/34535.html
Chapter 7: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35104.html
Chapter 8: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/35376.html
Chapter 9: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/36279.html
Chapter 10, part 1: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37232.html
Chapter 10, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/37564.html
Saga - Chapter 11
They started out with the tree-felling the very next day, having lingered abed for some time after waking, making good use of the last dark hour before the late winter dawn. But the morning feeding of horses and dogs could not be put off, and so they were soon enough up and about.
Eoin started breaking ice off the water barrel and getting a fire going for the morning meal, while Einnis fetched dried fish out of the barrel for the dogs and carried hay to the horses. They didn’t need to speak much, fell into an easy rhythm of working together, and shared a comfortable meal in the quiet and cold winter morning.
Soon they were off into the woods with two horses and a sleigh filled with axes and such other equipment and food that they were going to need for the first day’s work as lumberjacks. This work was new to Eoin, and he followed Einnis’s instructions in how to hold the ax and how a spruce should be felled in order for it to fall safely in the right direction. They started out with some smaller trees that had been marked, working together to fell one tree at the time, alternating their axe blows, finding a steady rhythm between them.
In this manner their first spruces were safely felled, and they set about lopping off the branches and twigs and making the timber ready for transport back to the farm. Eventually they got hooks into the denuded trunks, maneuvered the chains into position for their two horses, and harnessed them to the lumber. Slowly and surely the horses pulled the long and heavy poles through the snowy woods and back to the farm site.
The number of fine, straight spruce trunks on the site, ready and waiting for the farm building, increased steadily day by day.
--
After more than two weeks had passed, Einnis thought it high time to see about getting some fresh meat for the dogs, but mostly for themselves. Their activities both by day and by night made for voracious appetites, and their stores were dwindling rapidly.
Einnis hadn’t realized that although Eoin walked about on snow shoes easily enough, he didn’t know how to ski. Having himself been born with skis on his feet, as the saying was about northern Norsemen, Einnis saw in Eoin’s lack of skiing skills a challenge that wouldn’t long go unanswered.
Immediately setting them up for a training session, Einnis demonstrated the basic techniques, and made Eoin ski back and forth in the field around their little house under his critical eyes. Eoin learned and practiced the use of the long staff, as well as how to properly move and slide on the two wooden skis, tied to his boots with leather straps. Once he mastered the basic skills with sufficient confidence, the two of them set off at an easy pace through the woods, aiming to reach higher ground. Einnis went equipped with cords and some grain intended for bird snares, and was armed with his bow and arrows. Eoin carried a working axe in his belt, and a sack with food on his back. The dogs followed in their wake, skipping happily through the snow, running back and forth, sniffing at every tree, and sometimes taking off while barking madly to chase squirrels higher into the trees along their way.
The woods were otherwise cold and silent, but there were many tracks in the snow, mostly from birds. They could see where grouse and even a capercaillie had alighted, and many places there were tracks from crows or ravens. They also came across red fox tracks, and that of a lynx - at those times Einnis called the dogs in and made sure that they continued on. Though the pelts of the woodland predators might have proved valuable, that was not what the two of them were after. There weren’t any wolf tracks to be seen, though, which made them grateful, since they had heard wolves howling on a few nights, far away in the mountains.
They reached higher slopes, and in the distance could see a small herd of reindeer. The animals sensed their approach too soon and took off, disappearing among the far hills.
Eoin, not used to the movements of skiing, was getting tired. Though he didn’t complain he had to struggle to keep up. Einnis decided it was time to eat, and so they rested and shared their food, snuggled down in a hollow conveniently provided by an overhanging snow drift.
After the meal, Einnis said it was too late in the day to continue the hunt. They turned homewards, finding three goodly-sized grouse in the snares Einnis had set on the way. Back at Einstad in the evening they packed the birds in mud and clay scraped from the floor, and threw them on the fire, where they were baked and boiled in their own juices. It was a festive and tasty meal, enjoyed with much good cheer and strong ale.
It snowed during the night, a light fine powder that settled on top of the older snow crust and made for perfect skiing conditions. The clouds cleared at daybreak. The next day Einnis and Eoin set out earlier, and therefore got further. Eoin’s skills improved with every move he made. After they reached higher ground he scaled the hills and threw himself down the white slopes with an euphoric abandon that Einnis couldn’t help mimicking, both of them laughing loudly as the cold air whistled past their ears. Practically flying through the mountain air, they soared down slopes much as hunting hawks speed to strike at prey.
A bit foolhardily in his delight, Eoin let himself go, whooping as he set off down a particularly steep slope, throwing himself out in front of Einnis, who had stopped to gauge the risk and the best course ahead. Though his balance was unusually good for one so new to skiing, a hidden rock created a bump in the landscape that Eoin noticed too late. Struggling to avoid it, he foundered and crashed in a spray of snow.
Unharmed in body if not in pride, he remained lying on his back, chuckling at himself and his misfortune, magnificent though his fall surely had been.
Einnis hurriedly pulled up next to him, a worried frown giving way to laughter as Eoin’s carefree spirit proved infectious. Looking down to that happy face, Einnis all of a sudden threw himself down on the snow, passionately seeking Eoin’s laughing lips with his own. Eoin responded with joy and desire, letting go of his skiing staff to embrace Einnis and pull him close.
They spent some time kissing each other soundly there on the white slope, in the middle of nowhere, exposed to the cold blue sky and surrounded by silent and brooding woods - and after a short while also by their curious dogs. The panting breaths and yips of their spectators brought the two men back down to earth, and they got up to move on, though in very high spirits. They had to spend some time brushing snow off of each other, and also on finding Eoin’s staff, which had sailed away down the slope on its own.
That day like the preceding one didn’t bring them any reindeer within shooting range, but on their way back home the dogs flushed a young moose from its cover in the woods, and when they returned home to Einstad in the evening they brought back meat enough to feast on for many days to come.
---
Their work in the woods now took them to the larger spruces marked as timber. The experience they had gained with the smaller trees stood them in good stead, for the felling of the forest giants is never without dangers.
Their axes rang out insistently over the silent woods as they tackled an ancient, looming spruce. The majestic old tree didn’t give up easily. It continued balancing upright for a considerable time after their axes had cut deep enough to make it fall. At long last it started toppling, at first barely moving, slowly and gracefully, and then gaining speed as it came crashing down hard. It fell with a loud crackling sound and the rushing, swooping noise of storm winds blowing. But even in certain death it fought back. Falling well to the side of the intended direction, it came down perilously close to Eoin, who had stepped back far enough to believe himself safe. Now the huge and heavy snow-covered branches swept down, knocking him off his feet and hiding him from sight.
“Eoin!” Einnis yelled, bounding through the snow like a man possessed to get round to the other side of the large bulk of branches and snow. “Eoin! Can you hear me? Eoin!”
“I’m here, it’s alright,” came the muffled reply. Two large branches parted to reveal Eoin, who’d been beaten to his knees by the branches, but who’d escaped with nothing worse than a long red scratch along his right cheek where a twig had grazed him.
Einnis stopped short, staring at him, his hand seeking the Tor’s hammer around his neck as Eoin started to extricate himself and removed his cap to feel his short-cropped head with slightly shaking hands.
“I thought, by Tor, I thought…..” Einnis stammered. Then all at once relief and anger replaced frantic fear in his voice, battling to get the upper hand.
“By Frey’s big cock and balls, you need to be more careful! Haven’t I said those sweeping branches are dangerous? Haven’t I told you….”
Eoin looked at him and drew a shuddering breath, shaking his head mutely. It was enough to silence Einnis, who instead moved up close to take hold of him, nearly crushing him in a firm grip and exhaling with a moan as he hid his face in Eoin’s neck.
“By Tor, you could have been killed! I don’t know…. What….”
The rush of dread turning to relief made them both light-headed. They inhaled the sharp smell of each other’s sweat, a powerful aroma of mingled fear and elation, and suddenly went tense for another reason. Without warning, Eoin dove for Einnis’s mouth, kissing him hard, devouring him, grasping at him to pull him tight while pushing back against the immense newly-downed tree trunk behind them. Einnis responded with equal frenzy, grinding himself up against Eoin, his hands like vices round Eoin’s arms, kissing him like there would be no tomorrow.
Eoin let go of Einnis and convulsively moved his brown cloak aside, his hands going under his own tunic to loosen the drawstrings of his trousers. Einnis watched in breathless anticipation, then gripped Eoin even more firmly than before, pushing at him and scrabbling for purchase under his cloak. Eoin turned to face the strong trunk, leaning over it and bracing himself. Einnis was fumbling frantically at the front of his own trousers, moving them out of the way with one hand as he pulled Eoin’s down with the other.
The tingling rush of icy cold air against their warm exposed skin was tantalizing, heightening every sensation. Eoin spread his legs as far as his restraining trousers allowed. “Come on, come on!” he urged.
Einnis spat in his hand and felt his way, readying them both in desperate hurry. He pushed in, gripping Eoin’s hips for leverage, immediately setting up a forceful rhythm. Gasping and groaning they rode it out together, sweating in the cold snow of midwinter, shouting with glee in the silent woods, a deeply life-affirming ritual in the midst of frozen nature.
Continued in Chapter 11, part 2: http://gilli-ann.livejournal.com/38245.html