Bothvar Beorcolsson
The man with one eye sits chained to an iron throne, imprisoned in a dark, mysterious tower that has risen in a city of gold, but the gold itself has become tainted and cold. Ice now takes over the once warm haven. Sitting atop the throne is a man with long horns and a chilling stare with a wicked smile.
I shoot up from my sleep, drenched in sweat. Who was that on the throne? What was that the throne of? That man in the prison, I have seen him in other dreams. What does it all mean?
“You, okay?” I turn to see Amalasontha giving me a worried look.
I nod. “It was only a dream.”
“Be careful, Bothvar. Dreams are rarely only dreams.”
I shake off the terrible feeling I have. “We should get going.”
She only shrugs. After we wake up Blue-Eyes and get ready we eat and continue on in the darkness. Neither says a word, but I can feel their pain. Tonna did not deserve to die like that. The Bone Eaters need to be wiped from this land. They are a plague and are better off dead.
The night is dark, and the sky is dominated by clouds, cloaking the moons and stars. The dark makes sight limited. And the cold seems to creep in as we travel. The snow doesn’t help with how deep it is. But neither of us complain.
We just keep moving forward at a steady pace. I had to slow down for Amalasontha. It is surprising how slow the Valkyrie and Bone Eaters are. I do not know how they have survived this long with such delayed reactions and pitiful speed. Surely, I haven’t become that much faster to merit such an enormous gap between us. It couldn’t have been more than a hundred days at best, right? I wish I would’ve kept a better track.
We break for food and fire to warm. I prepare a fire by chopping down a dying tree and lifting the entire tree up on my shoulder, dragging it to our little campsite. Amalasontha just stares at me with complete shock.
“You’ve grown strong, Beorcolsson. I don’t know how you have grown so strong, but it is impressive. Despite that, you do not have to cut down an entire tree to feed a small fire,” she says. Leave it to a woman to care about how many trees I chopped down. Why does it matter? The tree was dying anyway.
I decide to ignore it and chop the tree into little pieces before I start a big fire. I hear Amalasontha mutter under her breath as clear as if she spoke the words out loud. “Men… Everything always has to be grand.”
“Women…” I mutter loud enough for her to hear. “Always complaining.”
She looks up at me in surprise. Her eyes narrow. She lets out a sigh and looks over at Blue-Eyes, who huddles close to the fire, hands wrapped around her knees. She is still so sad. Death seems to be something all three of us share now. I look over at Amalasontha and I notice the pain in her eyes as she too seems to huddle, mirroring Blue-Eyes. “I am sorry about Tonna. She deserved better. But she fought bravely and has earned an honorable death.”
The woman looks up at me with hard eyes. “There is more to life than honor and death. Tonna was too young to die. She deserved to live. You men seek death as if it is the greatest honor one could have, but there is no honor in death. Only the end of the journey. You’re foolish if you think otherwise. Only service in life brings honor upon your death.”
“Perhaps. But at least we can avenge our dead and bring honor in life,” I say in a bitter tone.
“And what will that achieve? It’ll only continue the cycle of killing and death. I know I want the Bone Eaters to suffer more than we’ve already caused. But the more I think about it, the more I’ve come to realize that it’ll only continue the cycle. They killed our daughters, so we want to kill their sons. What do you think will happen when we follow through?” she asks.
“What if you wipe them out entirely? If no one is left alive, then they cannot seek revenge. That’s what I did to the fiends in the mountains who killed Blue-Eyes’ family. I killed every last one of them, and I intend to do the same to the elves who killed Thorkel.”
“Did it bring them back?”
“No…”
“Are you going to kill all the elves?” she asks.
“No… Not all of them deserve to die. Only the ones on that ship,” I say.
“And what about their children? Will you kill them too? Surely, they will want to exact the same revenge you will exact on their fathers.”
“They have that right to do so, I suppose.”
“And what about the elf who killed your brother? Would it make a difference if you knew his father was murdered by a Kraken?” she asks.
“He wasn’t.”
She raises a single eyebrow. “Are you so sure?”
“I… no. I suppose it could’ve happened.”
She gives me a sad smile. A tear wets her eye. “As much as it pains me, Tonna is dead. I love her dearly, but it will not do her any good to kill every Bone Eater I find as much as I want to. Instead, I chose to do what she thought was right. I choose to help a lost cub find a new home, just as you are doing now. Killing them will only make me like them. I’m tired of killing. Of war. Of battle. My hands are soaked with the blood of all those my blade has ended. I see them in my sleep when I can get any. Heed my advice so you don’t follow my path. It only leads to pain and suffering.”
Neither of us say another word as we sit here in silence and eat. Soon, we begin our journey again as the day arrives. It does not bring the sun with it; instead, clouds continue to rule the sky. But the mountains are in sight. It is not far.
It takes us much of the morning to get there, but we arrive and start our ascent up the mountain.
“Shouldn’t be far,” she says, and she’s right. We reach a wide path that takes us into a conclave of yeti. They watch us wearily, but there seems to be familiarity when they look at Amalasontha. She walks forward, towards a yeti woman. I can hear what she says when she speaks with her hands. She tells the yeti woman that we have journeyed a long way to bring a child who lost her tribe home.
The yeti woman looks up at me and Blue-Eyes and she nods. She tells Amalasontha they will take the child and raise her as their own. I set Blue-Eyes down and kneel before her, bringing our eyes together. I tell her with my hands that she needs to stay here with them and they will be her family now. This will be her home.
Tears well up in her eyes as she tells me she doesn’t want to stay here. She wants to go with me and be a part of my tribe. My heart breaks a little more as I tell her she can’t. She must stay here with her own people. With them, she will be safe. She argues with me and tells me she will be safe with me. I shake my head no. I tell her where I go, death follows. That is no place for a child. I tell her this isn’t goodbye. I promise her that we will see each other again. We are just parting ways for the moment. She says she understands. I smile and tell her to be strong and grow into a fierce warrior like her father, Longhorn. Be proud to be his daughter. Be fearless like him. She nods and hugs me. She tells me she will be the fiercest warrior there is. I smile and tell her I know she will.
We finally part ways. I take one last look at Blue-Eyes as the yeti woman takes her in.
“You did the right thing,” Amalasontha says once we leave the mountain.
“It wasn’t easy,” I say looking back at the lonely peak. “It never is.”
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