They are coming.  Until now I did not know who they were.  Now I do.  They cannot be stopped by anyone in this village, and if they do not get what they want they will destroy the village and all in it.  Yet last time I spoke of my dreams I was taken to the priest, tested, pronounced a liar, and then beaten.  I will stay silent.  For now.

This village is not my people’s village yet it is the only home I have ever known.  Even now, as I near my thirteenth summer I am taller than all of the warriors in the village.  I have strength because I work the fields but I have never been permitted a weapon, I have been forbidden the warrior training that all the boys get.  I am a slave here.  By and large I am well treated but I do not belong.

I first dreamed of their coming almost a year ago, and all I knew was that they were coming.  Nothing more.  I now know that they are coming in dragon sea-steeds, and only one people use them.  I see only one dragon but many of them, but there is more.  Two hands of their number are not men, or not just men.  It is confusing.   The door is opening, time to work.

Along with the other slaves, none of whom are like me, I walk to the fields.  The people of this village are shorter than I, dark haired and dark eyed; my fellow slaves are mostly like them, some are even darker.  I stand at least a head above the tallest and my long, flaxen hair is tied back out of my face and I survey the world through eyes like chips of ice.  I am not of this land.  I do not know how I got here.  I do know I have work to do.

Sometimes we sing as we work, sometimes we talk.  Today I labour in silence.  I am trying to figure out my dreams.  They say dreams are just dreams, I do not believe that yet I do not know why.  These dreams are important.  The overseer rarely uses his whip; we do not need that kind of encouragement.  Small boys bring water, they are yet too young for much more.  We stop when the sun is high to eat, then a short rest before we resume work.  This year should be a good harvest – unless those who come are thwarted.  Then there will be none to bring the harvest in.  We worked on until darkness fell then returned to the slave hut for food and to be locked in for the night.  The men will fight among themselves, they will leave me alone. Of late my temper has been unpredictable, and violent.

The food is predictably bland and each gets his fair share, the women have to be kept separate to avoid fights.  After eating I walk to my pallet and allow myself to sleep again.  To dream again.

They are coming, and they are coming soon.  Before this moon is out they will be here, and now I can see them.  And they can see me.  What kind of dream is this?  I am looking at men who look like me, but obviously older.  One reaches toward me, I don’t move it is a dream after all.  Dreams cannot hurt me.  The priest says so.  One touches my head and smiles, then speaks:  The priest also says you lie.  A great heat runs through my body and I awake.

My clothes are drenched, sweat runs down my face and a cold cloth covers my forehead.  I blink and look up, I am not in the slave hut.  I am alone apart from the young woman mopping my forehead.  When my eyes open properly she smiles and offers me soup, I am surprised at how famished I am.  As I wolf down the soup she tells me I have had a fever for three nights, and if I did not wake tonight they were going to call in the priest to see if I were possessed.  I smile and promise I am not.  She leaves and I fall asleep again.

This dream is different.  The world around me is larger or I am smaller and I do not see the colours I know to be there.  But the sounds! The smells! This is truly a new world, or so I think until I see places and people I still recognise.  One of the guards, a brute to be sure readies a spear and jabs it at me, why? What have I done? I live here!  I dodge and call out, or try to, all I can manage is a bestial threatening growl, and he jabs again.  The taste of blood! He no longer stabs at me.  I run off faster than I have ever run before.  Screams and shouts awaken me.  Someone has been killed.  I try to rise and find myself stronger than I thought my mouth tastes of blood.  I must have bitten myself.  I rinse my mouth and go to see, the door is locked.  The water from my mouth is red with blood; I tip it away and pour fresh.  Just in case. The door opens and the body is brought in.  It is the guard from my dream except he has no throat, it has been torn out.  Things go black.

I awake with the cloth on my head again, yet I have no fever.  There is more soup and I don’t refuse, they take it away to stop me making myself sick.  I learn that the tracks say it was a wolf, a big wolf.  I grunt, speaking with a mouth full of soup is difficult.  And wasteful, its good soup.  I’m allowed out for air and to see the scene but not to do anything.  The air is good and there is not much to see where it happened, I return to my hut.

I sit on my bed and listen numbly as I am told that I return to work tomorrow.  I am well now.  The pain in my guts says otherwise but I say nothing.  There is no point.  I decide that I should go for a walk, but purposely avoid where the guard was killed.  I wander into the forest and smile as I recall how I ran here in my dreams, in a world of smells and sounds.  Without warning a cramp hits, taking my breath away. I fall to the ground and moan as a burning pain floods my body, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.  My arms are twisting, growing hair and nails, no claws.  Animal claws.  Another spasm and further changes, then it is over.  I stumble to my feet and find myself in my dream world of smell and sound.  I look down and see grey furred legs ending in large paws. I start to run, towards the smell of water.  I reach the river and, before I drink, see my face and head.  A wolf’s head.  As I drink the refreshing water the thoughts of the guard are pushed aside.  I have a forest to explore.

Time loses all meaning for me; all that matters is the now.  I run as I have never ran before, enjoying the simple pleasures that my human self overlooks or ignores.  When I finally turn back to the village I begin to panic, I can’t go into the village like this.  Then the pain hits again, this time I don’t hold back but let it out in an ear-splitting howl.  By the time I am back in human form there are people crashing through bushes, and I realise that my tunic is ripped beyond repair.

The questions come thick and fast, all I can do is claim to know nothing.  Which isn’t far from true; I’m beginning to doubt everything I ever knew. A cloak is thrown over me and I’m taken back to my hut, told to forget work in the morning and given a drink.  As it slips down I realises its drugged, then sleep takes me and I don’t care.
This time I’m standing on the shore and the serpents are run up the strand, all around me are the tall blonde warriors.  Some of them changing into something else.  Wolves.  Understanding dawns.  They are no threat to me, they are coming to get me.  I look at the shields, and the sail of the one ship that hasn’t landed yet.  All bear the image of a wolf’s head.  A grey wolf’s head.  The last part of my dream I recall as I awake is a word.  A foreign word to me to be honest, yet one that sounds so familiar.  Fenrir.

Only a day this time.  I realise that I have been told when they’ll be here.  In my dream the moon was full.  I sat up and ate ravenously of everything that was offered, taste didn’t matter.  Have to keep my strength up.  I am allowed out only with an escort.  I choose to walk in the cool of the evening, but mainly to see where the moon is.  It won’t be long, a few days.  I try once more to tell my tale and warn the village, this time it’s written off as delirium.  I hope they don’t try and fight, I’m not too sure which side I’d end up on.  I doubt that it’d make much difference.
The next morning the village is disturbed early, a rider from another village.  He carries news that is no news at all to me, the Norsemen are coming.  Four serpents of them, usually fifty or more men on each.  I decide to try and be near the beach when they arrive, but I’m not hopeful.  Even less so when the priest suggests locking the slaves up under guard each night until the threat passes.

Each day the slaves build defences, I’m back at work now but the defences will be no good.  They are designed to stop men.  I labour now for two reasons, to avoid the lash and to build muscle wasted by my illness.  We build spiked walls to slow down people storming the village.  We dig trenches to stop charges, such as those the villagers would make in this situation.  The trenches won’t even give a wolf pause, at least not one the size of those I saw.  Less than two days and they are coming. 

It seems so fast. Tonight is the full moon. We are locked up under guard, I feel oddly restless.  I know that there are five guards around the hut, and that all seventy slaves have been locked in one hut.  It is cramped.   I hear a horn sound, they are not coming.  They are here.