Chapter 6: Messenger from the Battlefield

Inside Thors and Helga's home, Floki frames the summons as a kindness, spinning a tale that the celebrated Jomsviking captain known as the Troll of Jom is returning in triumph after being presumed lost at sea fifteen years earlier. Thors objects that a whole longship was hardly needed to deliver the message and that its arrival has rattled the village. Floki muses that either Thors or the settlement has softened, praises the peaceful place war has never touched, and makes clear the veiled threat: refusing would cost Chief Sigvaldi face and leave Floki unable to return home empty-handed.

The village children, Thorfinn among them, overhear and thrill at the prospect of war against England, awed that the Jomsvikings crossed the sea just to recruit Thors. At the harbor, Leif explains that Thors once belonged to the fearsome company based at Jomsborg in distant Wendland, warriors reputedly so mighty the King of Wendland cannot tax them. Floki publicly proclaims that Thors has heeded the call, promises him a longship, and invites any villager who wishes to sail along, then departs with his men. The crowd celebrates the coming war while Thors walks off in silence, weighed down.

Back home, Thors confides to Leif that he once earned his living through murder and death until he could no longer stomach it, so he fled the battlefield and faked his own death. Asked whether he could flee again, Thors answers that the Jomsvikings never forgive deserters and would punish the village, and with nowhere left to run he must confront his past. At the harbor, the villagers haul his longship into the water. In the village, the children resume their game of war, and Thorfinn plays with brutal excess, striking others with his wooden sword even after being declared dead. When a boy confronts him, Thorfinn smashes him in the face and walks off wiping his bloody nose, watched sadly by Faxi.

Floki delivers the Jomsvikings' summons and pressures Thors to return by implicitly threatening the village. Leif reveals to the children Thors's past as a renowned Jomsviking captain. Thors publicly accepts and is granted a longship, and the villagers celebrate the coming war. Privately, Thors admits to Leif that he faked his death to escape a life of killing and now has no choice but to face it. Thorfinn plays war with cruel, rule-breaking aggression.

This sixth chapter opens Volume 2. Its events were adapted in Episode 2 of the anime. The epigraph comes from Thors, confessing to Leif how he abandoned the battlefield years before and dragged the village into danger.