Herger the Joyous: Mm-hm. Ride till we find them... and kill them all.
Herger the Joyous: Where did you learn our language?
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I listened!
[Ahmahd is given a Viking sword]
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: I cannot lift this.
Herger the Joyous: Grow stronger.
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!
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: I do not enjoy heights.
Herger the Joyous: [Speaks Greek]
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: What did he say?
Melchisidek: "Hurry to meet Death before your place is taken."
[Fahdlan rides off]
Melchisidek: We will remember you. Go with God.
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Looks skyward] You listening?
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.
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.
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: Iin the halls of Valhalla...
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: Where the brave...
Herger the Joyous: May live...
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: ...forever.
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!
Redhead: Watch where you throw that... you dig like a dog.
Herger the Joyous: Did you call me a dog?
Redhead: I said you dig like one. Flinging earth carelessly like an animal.
Herger the Joyous: So, now I'm an animal?
Redhead: You're not listening.
Herger the Joyous: I'm deaf?
Redhead: You're a fool little man.
Herger the Joyous: That is because, boy, your words are feeble and twisted as an old woman!
Redhead: This old woman'll send you to the next world old man.
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.
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 returns from scouting]
Edgtho the Silent: The next glen, many fires.
Buliwyf: [shouts] Is there a cave?
[Ahmad Ibn Fahdlan shows off his new scimitar, whittled down from a Viking sword]
Skeld the Superstitious: [Skeld shrugs] He insisted.
Weath the Musician: Give an Arab a sword, he makes a knife.
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [Ahmad cuts through a thick wooden pole in one chop]
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: 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]
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.
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.
[Ibn has killed a 'beast']
Herger the Joyous: It's all right, little brother... there are more!
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [looking at piles and piles of skulls in the Wendol's cave] I was wrong. These are not men.
[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 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: [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]
[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.
[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!
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.
Herger the Joyous: Let's go, little brother! It's beginning.
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.
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.
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, and 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.
[the warriors are outnumbered and trapped in a cave]
[thunder]
Weath the Musician: Go on, make it worse. Now it's gonna rain.
[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 are you saying?
Melchisidek: The thirteenth warrior... is you.
[after the first battle with the Wendol, Herger finds Ahmad, lying dazed on the floor]
Herger the Joyous: [laughing] Well, he didn't run!
[Ahmed rides out to the watchtower, and finds it empty]
Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan: [shouting] 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 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.
