Some good stuff here. The sense of time and place, companionship, violence, dialogue, imagery, characters. In short, the makings of a great story.
Some phrases I loved:
- "a hiss from the fire as a man coughed and spat into the flames"
- "you know well how they are at that age, all legs and arms and freckles.”
- "he didn’t want to have to waste time setting out by having to dig a grave."
However, I think the pacing could be improved. The first four paragraphs seemed a bit of an "info dump." There's a lot there, especially in the 2nd paragraph where you talk about the Burgundars, the Suebars, etc. This is probably important background information, but for me this is too soon, I don't care about Gebicar's backstory yet. Maybe trim some of this information from the staring paragraphs and feed it to us later after we've come to know him better. Tease us a bit....
A few well-chosen details about the landscape and people would add to the picture. What kind of trees are they? What season of the year is it? What are the men wearing?
>>> He gave instructions to his men to hunt any large pray they came upon along the way
This should be "prey".
But I loved the campfire banter and the fight, and after Dagmær's dramatic intro I definitely want to read more.
