The wealth of Axiomra could not be hidden forever. Its fame traveled not on Viking longships, but along the winding, dangerous rivers of the Rus, all the way to the heart of the Islamic Golden Age.
It was mid-summer when the horns blew at the southern watchtower. A caravan was approaching, but they carried no Viking banners.
Bilal stood on the battlements, Runa by his side. Her hand rested on the stock of her heavy steel crossbow. "Raiders, Father?" she asked, her eyes scanning the tree line.
"No," Bilal whispered, his heart leaping with a strange, profound ache of nostalgia. He recognized the cut of their cloaks. He recognized the curved scabbards.
He walked down to the gates and ordered them opened.
A dozen exhausted, freezing merchants from Al-Andalus (Spain) and Baghdad rode into the courtyard. They looked around in absolute bewilderment at the towering stone architecture and the impeccably clean, giant men guarding the walls.
The leader of the caravan, a man named Tariq with a greying beard, stepped forward cautiously. He had heard the myths of the "Demon Giant," but the silver profits were too tempting to ignore.
Bilal stepped out of the Great Hall. He was draped in a thick wolf-fur mantle, but underneath, he wore a fine linen tunic.
He looked at the weary merchant. For the first time in nearly two decades, Bilal spoke his native tongue not as a secret code, but as a greeting to a peer.
"As-salamu alaykum, ya Akhi," (Peace be upon you, my brother), Bilal said, his voice booming warmly across the stone plaza.
Tariq the merchant dropped to his knees, his eyes wide with shock and sudden tears. To travel to the end of the frozen, barbaric earth and hear the language of the Prophet spoken by a King was a miracle.
"Wa alaykumu as-salam, Emir," Tariq replied, bowing his head.
Bilal did not treat them like traders; he treated them like royalty. He ordered Astrid to prepare the guest house with heated floors and fresh, roasted lamb. He provided them with warm, boiled water to perform Wudu (ablution).
When the sun dipped low, painting the Norwegian sky in strokes of violent purple and gold, Bilal brought the merchants into his private, carpeted hall.
There, facing the distant Southeast toward Mecca, the 105kg Viking Warlord stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the traveling merchants and led the Maghrib prayer.
After the prayer, as they drank hot tea sweetened with Axiomra honey, the trading began. But Bilal didn't want ordinary goods.
"My Brother," Bilal said, leaning over the low wooden table, the firelight dancing in his dark eyes. "I do not need your silver. I need your knowledge. I need the yellow root of India (Turmeric). I need the raw ingots of Damascus. And most importantly..."
Bilal unrolled a massive piece of rag paper, detailing a map he had drawn from memory of the Mediterranean Sea. He pointed to the coast of Italy.
"...I need passage for myself and three men. I am taking the Hajj. And on the way, I need to collect the ash of the burning mountains (Volcanic Ash). I must turn my wooden walls into unbreakable stone before the Emperor Cnut returns."
Tariq looked at the map, then at the Giant. He realized he was not sitting with a barbarian. He was sitting with a mastermind who was playing a game of empires across continents.
"It will be done, Emir," Tariq promised. "The East will open its doors to the Giant of the Snow."
But Bilal knew that to leave his city, he had to disappear. If the rival Jarls knew he was traveling, they would ambush him on the road or attack the city in his absence.
He looked at Runa, who was watching from the doorway, her sharp eyes missing nothing.
"To save them," Bilal thought, feeling the familiar, heavy crush of guilt returning to his chest, "I am going to have to break their hearts. I am going to have to die."