7
Erlandr was the first to sight land—or if not sight it, then at least the first to yell, "Look, there!" while pointing with an outstretched finger at a hazy shape looming on the horizon. He felt like an explorer. The Riverraider's expression didn't change. Goll drank the rest of his ale and hid the empty water skin under his shirt.
It was the fifth day of their voyage.
As they sailed nearer, Erlandr made out the shapes of low hills and brown, jagged mountains covered by patches of blindingly white snow. His first impression was one of frozen desolation.
Rather than make landfall, they sailed perpendicular to the coast. It was littered with tiny islands and cut into by inlets and deep fjords.
Around the fjords and on the hills grew patches of trees, strips of vibrant green on what Erlandr knew must be Greenland.
"Look for signs of settlement. Until we find one, we stay in the boat," the Riverraider said.
They looked all afternoon and into the evening but found none. At night, they took turns sleeping and keeping watch. Still there was nothing. Then, in the early hours of the next morning, illuminated by the first rays of the rising sun, they saw it, the backlit outline of a familiar thatched-roof building: a Viking longhouse.