Bothvar Beorcolsson
The ax comes slicing through the air hunting for my throat. My hesitation is going to be the death of me.
By the gods…
He is slow. I move out of the way of his slash as easily as if a newborn baby threw it. I jump to my left as another one bursts through a shrub with his ax slamming down from over his head. My sword goes through his neck. I heard his footsteps getting closer. He is just as slow as the other one.
A smile forms on my face and fear shows in the skin wearer’s eyes. I charge him as he holds his shield up to defend himself. My ax breaks through the shield and slices him in half. I’m covered in his blood as it sprays out like a geyser while his torso and legs fall apart.
Three steps away, another one charges into the opening and my blade seeks its throat and finds it, severing it without him realizing he’s dead until his head is separated from his body.
The snow is red as I bathe in their blood. I lose myself in my all-consuming hunger for death. I feel unstoppable.
I’ll kill them all. Every last one of them. I’ll hunt each one and collect their heads. Three of them stop as they see the death and carnage in my past. They trade looks as my ax chops while a fourth one charges me. I spin away from his pathetic overhand chop while my sword twirls in my hand to a reverse grip and stabs him in the heart through his back.
By the time the three others decide to charge me, I’m already inside the first one’s guard my sword swipes up, slicing him from balls to head as the separate halves fall from each other, leaving twin waterfalls of blood spraying out.
The second Bone Eater, who wears the upper half of a bear’s head like a helm, entire face contorts in horror. I make sure it’s permanently contorted that way as I sever his head from his body. His bear helm falls in a separate direction from his head. The third gets his iron sword up in time so I can slice through it with my own sword, my blade digging a trench from his shoulder all the way down to the opposite hip.
I leave a trail of mangled Bone Eater bodies as I hunt them down. Reveling in death and carnage. I’m completely covered in their blood. My blades hunger for more death. I get lost in this primal hunger to kill.
But when I turn to look around, horror takes over at what I see. The Valkyrie have been spread out fighting an overwhelming number of Bone Eaters. But what makes my stomach churn is the sight of Tonna lying on the ground with a Bone Eater’s teeth digging into the flesh of her neck. Blue-Eyes cowers in fear as she clings to a tree.
The next thing I remember was my blades dismembering the corpse of the Bone Eater. I’m surrounded by his dead kin. Others of his kind flee in terror as I roar out, but they can’t run from me. I chase them down and slaughter every last one of them. The last one begs for his life. I make his last moments a complete nightmare. He dies from a thousand cuts.
As the rage slowly cools down in my blood, I drop to my knees and howl out the last of it. I clean my blades off in what little white snow I can find before I find the others gathered around the dead body of Tonna. Amalasontha kneels over her, clenching her limp hand as she weeps for losing her daughter. Blue-Eyes cries as well as she looks down at the dead Valkyrie that I once considered a friend. The forest floor has become a graveyard of dead bodies. Mostly Bone Eaters, but some Valkyrie lie here and there. “My daughter. My baby girl. Don’t leave me. A mother is not supposed to live beyond her child. This is not how it is supposed to be.”
Another person I cared about died because of me. If I wasn’t so lost in my hunger for death I would’ve been here where I could’ve saved her. It is my fault, and I will remember her along with Thorkel, Varin, Styrkar, Saksis, Longhorn, White-hair, and Short-Snubs. The list of lives I failed to save continues to grow. Why do the gods continue to curse me?
She looks up at me. Fear and grief in her eyes. “What kind of man are you? Even asking, I know the answer… You’re the bringer of death. But I cannot blame you for Tonna’s death. No. Not you.”
Her eyes travel across the forest of corpses. I follow her gaze to the sight of the bloody mess. I hate them. “I will make the Bone Eaters pay. They will all suffer!”
“They have suffered. None who attacked left with their lives,” she says as wolves stalk out from the forest and begin to feast on the corpses of the Bone Eaters. “Fetch our dead and bring them home. We will not let the wolves feed on them, but they can have the Bone Eaters. I hope they leave none of their wretched taint in our woods.”
“You can’t trust the Wolves,” I growl, glaring at them. If it wasn’t for Blue-Eyes, I’d have half a mind to kill them, too. The Wolves have always been the enemies of the Kraken Clan. They betrayed us and killed my forefathers long ago. I hate them.
“Do not let your blind hate lead you to the wrong path. The Wolf Clan was never your enemy,” she says.
“And yet the wolves only watched as we fought the Bone Eaters. They only come now that the fighting is over. Cowards,” I say, gritting my teeth.
“Perhaps,” she says, turning back to me as her daughter’s body is carried off. She reaches out to her. Tears stream down her blood-stained face. She puts a hand on one of her warrior’s shoulders. “Tell Dasyra and Amalgunda to prepare them for the funeral rituals for when I return.”
“Where are you going, mother?” the Valkyrie asks.
“I will honor my daughter’s last wishes and help the yeti child find a new home. I’ll lead the man to the other yetis to the south,” Amalasontha says. The younger woman warrior nods, puts her fist against her chest, and runs off with the rest.
I go to Blue-Eyes who stares off behind the fleeting Valkyrie soldiers. My hand rests on her shoulder. She looks up at me with wet eyes. It’s becoming harder and harder to see the differences between her people and mine.
I pick Blue-Eyes up and put her on my back. “Let’s be off then.” “I don’t know about you, but I need to clean and change or I’ll freeze to death. There is a cabin to the south of here on our way to the mountains. We can stop there, clean, and rest for a night before going on,” she says. I agree, reluctantly.
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