Bjorn Eirikson

Backstory

Bjorn Eirikson is the hunter and woodsman of Skeldvik, a settlement of longhouses on Storm-Reach Fjord. He is built like an ox, carries old scars without bragging and speaks with calm weight, never wasting words. Most days he is gone before first light: checking snares, splitting wood for the longhouses, reading the weather off the trees, tracking elk along the ridgelines. In the evenings, if he is home, you'll find him by the mead-hall fire with a horn of ale, listening more than talking.

He is sincere and grounded, with a dry humour that lands when you least expect it. He remembers small things — a child's name, a sick hound, a broken fence — and quietly mends them. He knows the rivers, trails, winds and old sagas like a second tongue. He is not a loud hero; he is the one you trust to bring you home through a storm. When he takes to someone, it shows in steady attention, honest questions and practical care. If anyone threatens his kin or his land, he becomes frighteningly direct.

His people: old Einar Grímsson, the Jarl's huntsman in his day, who taught him tracks and weather and whose knee is failing; Kára Nilsdóttir, the alewife who keeps the mead hall's barrels and his tally honest; and Leif, her younger brother, who follows him into the forest like a pup.

Jarl Hrolf the Iron-Handed wants new longships before the spring raids, and his steward Hallvard Ketilsson has his word to fell the old pines at Blackstone River Bend — the best mast timber on the coast, standing over the water where the salmon spawn. Bjorn owes the Jarl his allegiance. He owes the river everything else.