My crew and I had been sailing for about three days, and I could hear seagulls overhead.  We were close to land. After a couple more hours, I could the shore of England. The place looked like it would have some nice places to raid. Up on the hill right off the beach is what appeared to be a grand city fortified by a rather large wall. This city was to be our first raid. We drew closer and closer to the shore. Eventually, I jumped off the boat along with a few other Vikings, leaving it about ten feet in the shallow water.
As we walked onto the beach, five men on horseback rode up to us. They were speaking some weird language that I couldn’t quite understand. It seemed as if they were trying to get us to follow them. However, my other crew members, who had stayed on the boat, didn’t trust these strangers, and pulled out their war axes. They swiftly charged at their enemies, and made to bludgeon them and their steeds. In retaliation, the horsemen unsheathed their swords and slashed at my fellow Vikings. While the two sides were engaged, I withdrew my own weapon, the bearded axe I that had brought along for occasions such as this. I was determined on killing the horsemen; if they got away, they could sent backup. Sure enough, one enemy stayed in the fight, who was quickly taken down by my comrades, while two others attempted to flee. I threw my axe at one of the men in the fashion in which one throws a tomahawk. ”Perfect!” I exclaimed; I had struck him right in the back. Although the rider fell off his horse, the animal continued to gallop away.
By the time I got my axe back, it was too late. The last horseman had fled toward for the city, and if we were to follow him, we would surely be outnumbered. ”Get back to the boats!” I yelled. Everyone climbed aboard with much haste, as reinforcements were spotted heading toward us. The enemy was mere inches away from us when we pulled off shore. On the ride back to sail back to Sweden, I had at first felt that this trip was pointless, but this feeling quickly disappeared when I observed that my crew had grabbed the weapons, shields, and armor from the fallen foe. Most of these we made from solid iron, we would smelt these down to create coins and arrows.
After sailing for three more days, we had finally set foot in Sweden. We went to the Jarl and showed him the supplies that we had captured. The Jarl seemed a bit disappointed about how little we had brought back. I spoke with much caution,” Jarl, these are just the supplies of the troops that meet us at the beaches.” ”There was an entire city sat upon the ridge next to the beach.”
The Jarl’s expression of disappointment grew into a furious grimace, and he glared at us with anger. ”Why would you leave all that potential loot behind?!”
“We were getting stormed by men on horseback, sir!” I quickly replied.
The Jarl stood up, clenching his fists as he raised his voice. ”You imbeciles! They will only have more time to set up defenses! You should have set up a shield wall or something!”
“Do you wish for us to go back?” I asked.
The Jarl looked at me profoundly “Well, how promising did the town look?”
For a while I sat there in silence trying to recall how the town looked. ”The walls looked sturdy so I am guessing that they are protecting something that is expensive.”
The Jarl looked around the room with disgust, staring at each and every one us with his fiery eyes of hatred. ”Gather some food and leave, and don’t you come back until you have searched the whole city!”
My comrades and I trudged somberly out of the Jarl’s house.  As I walked to the dining hall, I felt as if I had failed everybody. Upon arrival, everyone grabbed a couple baskets of food and a couple of kegs of water. We hauled the goods back to our boats. Just as we started to row off the docks, Adhelin appeared in the distance. I waved to her, raising my arm so that she could see her ring on my arm. We set sail back to the lands that we had just left.

Once we made it back to England, we all saw that the walls were lined with troops. We got to the shallows as quickly as we could. My crew and I jumped out of the boat and made for the beach. The troops proceeded to charge at us. After every one of us were on the beach, we set up a shield wall, interlocking our shields to create a barrier to hide behind. Sure enough, the enemy ran straight into our shield wall, pushing up against it. Eventually, they broke through at one point, and they all flooded in, striking down four of our men. We turned around and put up a shield wall, trapping our foes in the center of our circle. No matter how ferociously they slashed, their attempts to escape were futile. When the entrapped soldiers eventually tired, our men advanced into the center to slay them. I grabbed my axe and started swinging, with every swipe more and more of them would fall. Soon enough, there was only about twenty of the enemies remaining. One of them charged at me with a spear. I sidestepped the attack, but he managed to slash my left arm. I dropped my weapon in agonizing pain. The man who had just wounded me was standing above me. He grabbed his spear and prepared to stab me in the chest. In the nick of time, I rolled to the side and grabbed my sword, swinging it precisely at his gut. He collapsed to the ground. I made it back on my feet, noticing that all the remaining enemies had been killed by my crew.
After winning the battle, we started for the city. One of my men saw that I was wounded, he ran back to the boat. He grabbed one of his extra shirts and ripped it. He then wrapped the cloth around my wound tightly. The gate to the city was locked, so we had to use our axes to chop at the door. The Viking who bandaged me ran over to the battlegrounds. When he returned, he handed my axe to me. I tried to chop at the wood, but I was in so much pain that I could not do very much. Once we created a large enough hole, we all climbed through. It looked like the city had been abandoned, but we still searched the place. While my friends couldn’t find anything of value, I entered a large building in the middle of the city and found nothing in there but riches. There were gold medallions, silver cups, and other rich metals as far as the eye can see. We grabbed every cup, medallion, and coin we could possibly hold. Two large chests were filled to the brim with the metals and placed into the boat. We started our second trip back to Sweden.
We returned to Sweden after less than two days of sailing. The Jarl was standing at the docks, waiting for us. He stared at me with stern eyes and asked, ”How much loot have you brought back?” I didn’t say a word, instead opening one of the chests. “Is this all the loot you got?!” I brought the second chest over and opened it. I watched his face as his jaw dropped in awe while he ogled at the gold medallions and silver cups. ”How many more of this towns are there?!” Clearly, this man cared for nothing but riches.
“We couldn’t see any more from where we were,” I explained, “but it looked like a large island.”
The Jarl stood quietly for a while, his eyes peering into our souls. ”We will send more ships there, but all of you can chose if you would like to stay or go.”
My men unanimously decided that they would like to stay. The Jarl turned to face me; he wanted my input. I blurted out, “ I would like to stay here for one raid, and then I’m going back!” The other Vikings were surprised to see that I was eager to go raiding again. ”I want to have some time to spend with my wife, but I must go back…I have to fight. I don’t think that my god Odin is pleased. I must go back.”
The Jarl seemed surprised with my answer, “Well, okay it’s decided… you can go now.”
I started to walk back to my house. I walked in. My wife was gone…she had gone raiding.