- Buliwyf: Lo, there do I see my father. 'Lo, there do I see...
- Herger the Joyous: My mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
- Buliwyf: Lo, there do I see...
- Herger the Joyous: The line of my people...
- Edgtho the Silent: Back to the beginning.
- Weath the Musician: Lo, they do call to me.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They bid me take my place among them.
- Buliwyf: In the halls of Valhalla...
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where the brave...
- Herger the Joyous: May live...
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: ...Forever.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things. This was not among them. But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well. For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought; all we ought to have said, and have not said; all we ought to have done, and have not done; I pray thee, God, for forgiveness.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: How can you sleep at a time like this?
- Herger the Joyous: The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing.
- Buliwyf: I have only these hands. I will die a pauper.
- King Hrothgar: You will be buried as a king.
- Buliwyf: A man might be thought wealthy if someone were to draw the story of his deeds, that they may be remembered.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Such a man might be thought wealthy indeed.
- Herger the Joyous: When they come, we form a circle in the center of the room, backs to one another.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I am not a warrior.
- Herger the Joyous: Very soon, you will be.
- [Herger kills one of the Prince's henchmen in a sham duel]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: You, you could have killed him at will.
- Herger the Joyous: Yes?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Well, why the deception?
- Herger the Joyous: Deception is the point! Any fool can calculate strength. That one has been doing it since we arrived. Now he has to calculate what he can't see.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: And fear... what he doesn't know.
- Buliwyf: As you say, foolish. And expensive. We will miss Angus tonight, we will miss his sword.
- Skeld the Superstitious: [Ahmad Ibn Fahdlan shows off his new scimitar, whittled down from a Viking sword; Skeld shrugs] He insisted.
- Weath the Musician: Give an Arab a sword, he makes a knife.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [cuts through a thick wooden pole in one chop] It works.
- [He tosses it into the air, twirls it around, then holds the blade to Weath's neck]
- Weath the Musician: When you die, can I give that to my daughter?
- [laughter]
- Herger the Joyous: We shall pray for your safe return!
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Pray to whom?
- Herger the Joyous: In your land one God may be enough, but here we have need of many. I will pray to all of them for you. Do not be offended!
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I'll be in your debt!
- [they wave goodbye]
- Herger the Joyous: Goodbye, Arab!
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Goodbye, Northman.
- Skeld the Superstitious: Blow-hards the both of you. She probably was some smoke-colored camp girl. Looked like that one's mother.
- [laughter]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: My mother was a pure woman from a noble family. And I, at least, know who my father is, you pig-eating son of a whore!
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Herger speaks Greek] What did he say?
- Melchisidek: Hurry to meet Death before your place is taken.
- Melchisidek: [as Ahmed rides off] We will remember you. Go with God.
- Melchisidek: [looks skyward] You listening?
- Angus: Watch where you throw that... you dig like a dog.
- Herger the Joyous: Did you call me a dog?
- Angus: I said you dig like one. Flinging earth carelessly like an animal.
- Herger the Joyous: So, now I'm an animal?
- Angus: You're not listening.
- Herger the Joyous: I'm deaf?
- Angus: You're a fool, little man.
- Herger the Joyous: That is because, boy, your words are feeble and twisted as an old woman!
- Angus: This old woman'll send you to the next world, old man.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They think they are bears... they want us to think they are bears... Hey, how do you hunt a bear?
- Weath the Musician: Chase it down with dogs. What...?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: How do you hunt a bear in winter?
- Herger the Joyous: Go in its cave with spears.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where is a cave?
- Weath the Musician: [realizing] It's in the earth.
- Edgtho the Silent: [Returns from scouting] The next glen, many fires.
- Buliwyf: IS THERE A CAVE?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [rides out to the watchtower, and finds it empty] EDGTHO? EDGTHO?
- Edgtho the Silent: [from a nearby tree] Stifle your racket, I hear you.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Thought to find you in the tower.
- Edgtho the Silent: Yeah. Why I'm not in it.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [as Herger offers a mead horn] I can taste neither the fermentation of grape, nor of wheat.
- [Herger laughs]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What? Why do you laugh?
- Herger the Joyous: [laughing and handing over the bottle] HONEY! It's made from honey!
- Melchisidek: He wants to know your name.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: My name is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Ibn Al Abbas Ibn Rashid Ibn Hamad.
- Herger the Joyous: Eben?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: No, listen, My name is Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan. "Ibn" means "son of".
- [to the others]
- Herger the Joyous: Eben.
- [Olga inspects Ibn's wound]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Ow!
- Olga: That's a woman's sound.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Do that again and you'll make it.
- [after the Oracle cast the bones and picks out the thirteenth]
- Melchisidek: She says the thirteenth warrior must be no North man.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What the hell are you saying?
- Melchisidek: The thirteenth warrior... is you.
- [after the battle is over, Ahmed sleeps with Olga]
- Herger the Joyous: Did she finish you off or bring you back to life?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: A gentleman doesn't discuss such things.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [narrating] I am Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, Ib Al Abbas, Ibn Rasid, Ibn Hammad. And things were not always thus. At one time, I was a poet in the greatest city in the world. Life was easy and I lived without care. Until one fateful day, I met a beautiful woman who belonged to another man. Her jealous husband complained to the Caliph who made me the ambassador to the land of the Tossuk Vlad - a country far to the north. I was banished from my home and from all that I knew. So, I journeyed by camelback many months into the lands of barbarian peoples - accompanied by Melchisidek, an old friend of my father - through the lands of the Ogus, the Khazars and the Bulgars, into the lands of murderous bandits, called "Tartars", who attack caravans, slaughtering everyone.
- [Herger prepares for his duel with Angus]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What happened?
- Herger the Joyous: An engineering dispute.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: You notice he's bigger than you?
- Herger the Joyous: Yes.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: And younger.
- Herger the Joyous: Yes.
- [He bangs his shield and moves into the ring]
- Herger the Joyous: Bet on him, if you like.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I may!
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Have we anything resembling a plan?
- Herger the Joyous: Mm-hm. Ride till we find them... and kill them all.
- Skeld the Superstitious: [Talking about Ahmed's horse] Only an Arab would bring...
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: A dog to war? I heard this the first time.
- Wigliff - King's Son: [Speaking of Buliwyf] This gentleman has the look of a great warrior, no doubt he's very brave. But to face the Wendo, he'll need some amazing luck.
- Buliwyf: Luck often enough, will save a man, if his courage hold.
- Wigliff - King's Son: That maybe, but wait for the Wendo one night's time, and then talk to us of courage.
- Buliwyf: I thank the lord for his advice, though I don't recall hearing any exploits of his apart from killing his brothers.
- [Ahmed rushes out of the butchered farmhouse and vomits]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: They have been... gnawed upon.
- Herger the Joyous: It is said, they eat the dead.
- [Buliwyf is dying slowly of poison]
- Buliwyf: You're wearing that long face for me?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [small smile] I cannot help it.
- [introducing Buliwyf]
- Herald: My lord, this is Buliwyf, son to Hygelak, come from across the sea...
- [interrupting]
- King Hrothgar: I *know* the man! *I* sent for him! Knew him as a boy and I know him now. Grown to a man. Grown to a fine, strong man.
- Buliwyf: You can draw sounds?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Draw sounds? Yes, I can draw sounds... and I can speak them back.
- Buliwyf: Show me.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Drawing in the sand] There is only one God, and Mohammad is his prophet.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [looking at piles and piles of skulls in the Wendol's cave] I was wrong. These are not men.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [as Olga is cleaning his wound] Ow!
- Olga: You complain much.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [quietly] Ow.
- [she applies a swab of ammonia]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What is that?
- Olga: Cow urine.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Cow urine?
- Olga: Boiled down.
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: No, no. Don't put that filth on me. Water, clean water.
- Olga: As you wish. Tomorrow the pus will run, and you'll have a fever.
- [he lets her put it on]
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What do you suppose the potentate of this camp calls himself?
- Melchisidek: Oh, emperor, at the very least.
- Rethel the Archer: [the warriors ride through the camp and observe the structure] No wall. No moat. Not even a presentable fence.
- Helfdane the Fat: You couldn't keep a cow out of this place.
- Hyglak the Quarrelsome: [Observing the inhabitants] Women and children. Barely a man between fifteen and fifty.
- Weath the Musician: [the warriors are outnumbered and trapped in a cave when thunder sounds] Go on, make it worse. Now it's gonna rain.
- [before the final battle, Weilew brings a wrapped bundle to Olga, waiting in the cellar of the Great Hall, with the village's children]
- Queen Weilew: When the time comes...
- [She unwraps the bundle to reveal a set of daggers. Olga takes the bundle and hastily covers it again]
- Queen Weilew: *Don't* let them be taken!
- [after the first battle with the Wendol, Herger finds Ahmad, lying dazed on the floor]
- Herger the Joyous: [laughing] Well, he didn't run!
- Herger the Joyous: The Allfather wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing.
- Oracle - Old Woman: Come closer, Buliwyf.
- Buliwyf: You know me?
- Oracle - Old Woman: I have ears! "Warrior" says the wind. "Chieftain" says the rain. But why seek you me? Met you your match? Met you your match with The Eaters of The Dead?
- Sacrificial Woman: Have you a token? A thing? A thing of them?
- Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Hands over the figurine from the farmhouse] Yes
- Sacrificial Woman: They show you the way you will not see. Slaughter them 'til you rot. You will accomplish nothing. Find the root. Strike the will.
- Buliwyf: How?
- Sacrificial Woman: This is the mother of the Wendol. She they revere. She is the will.
- Buliwyf: Where do I seek her?
- Sacrificial Woman: She is the earth. Seek her in the earth.
- Weath the Musician: How deep in the earth are we?
- Helfdane the Fat: Deep enough to fall out the bottom.
- Edgtho the Silent: Rider.
- Edgtho the Silent: Well-fed on a light mount.
- Edgtho the Silent: [Sniffs the air] Perfume.
- Rethel the Archer: Ach. A woman.
- Roneth - Rider: A herald.
- Hyglak the Quarrelsome: It's a silk-swaddled messenger boy.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
