Svarog: Chapter One, Part One

By Jaz McDougall

Counting his two surviving arrows, Torg hushed his breathing and cursed his luck. The temple in ruins, the battle won, and still he fought for his life in the dungeons beneath.
Still, he'd done his duty, won his honour, and if he could survive to enjoy it, his freedom. Were it not for his quivering knees, the crumbling stone ledge beneath, and the unhinged bent of the slavering enemies below, Torg would be happily counting his blessings: Two arrows, two foes, and beyond them, the way out. The fires, the beach, the longships, the sea, and then home to Ranheim, and hopefully not so much as a dark cloud along the way.
Staring down at these two, Torg recalled their savage brothers and sisters on the beach landing that morning. Bloody, desperate fighters they were, pitching every filed tooth and ragged nail against the Ranr steel. To a warrior in full dress, only a little more dangerous than any other rabble. For Torg, in light armour, having lost his knife in somebody's eye, tired after a long night's wait and a day's sleek assassination, he knew his life depended on using his last two arrows wisely. Failing that, he'd have to hope they choked on his still-warm bones.
He drew the first arrow. Nocked it. Pulled it taught, held it steady. Reared the eager arrow, lined up with the exposed neck. Just as he began to relax his grip on the bowstring, he glimpsed the belt of throwing knives strapped to the exposed thighs of the cultists. For a moment he teetered on the brink of action, the eager vision of fleeing shafts straining at his nervous system.
With an errant twitch, his hand let go, the arrow fired, and his heart lurched with the error. He cursed aloud. The arrow stuck the older, stockier cultist through his bicep. A grunt hefted from his slack jaw as he craned his neck to inspect the sharp splintering in his arm.
The other didn't puzzle over the red shaft protruding from his fellow. He spun instead, slaver hanging on the lower edge of his wooden mask, and cast his eyes about the ceiling of the chamber. Torg's only hope lay in sending another to him before the other got up. Perhaps lightning would strike them, he urged in flippant prayer.
Just then, Torg's ledge gave way, and he leapt at the wounded fiend, hoping to arm himself with a filched knife. As Torg leapt, the standing one threw his blade at the ceiling with killing force, and it didn't come down again. Torg landed roughly, but on one foot, at least, the other knee grazing badly.
His sights fell on the pierced cultist. He leapt from his haunches, knocking him to the ground in a whorl of teeth and knees and nails. His right fist smashed the throat; the other went to the thigh belt, the knife grip, and he pulled it free, raised it high, stabbed it down.
From nowhere, pain soaked into his shoulder; the Ranr's gold hair dusted suddenly with scarlet. He rolled over the fallen one, pawing at the standing cultist, but it was too late; a blade stuck into his side, missing ribs, puncturing something that felt hot and sent nausea to work in his belly. Something vital.
The cultist was calm, and paced beyond the field of Torg's vision. He gripped the hilt in his side. Through the knife's blade, he felt the gentle pressure of his fingers like a storm of glass in his stomach. He closed his eyes, pulled it free. It didn't hurt.
His head felt light. His heart felt slow. With white encroaching on his vision, he stood gingerly and backed into a corner, blades held wide.
The cultist, grinning mask hiding his true smirk, stood slowly now, without urgency. He had been eating his wounded friend. Summoning his will, giddy with endorphins and pride, Torg kicked dust at them, and charged, throwing both knives.
His legs gave way. His vision quaked all the way to the ground. The fall was long, like falling from horseback at a gallop. He knew a red pool was escaping him now, fleeing in every direction, every drop a second, a minute, a year. The pain had long since been replaced by sweet nausea and bitter defeat. His vision blacked for a second, and when he came to, his head had lurched over. Hot blood and coarse sand had covered his face.
He looked to the heavy exit door, which blew open, the six-inch hinges rattling in the stone, three inch oak shuddering.
"What a foul wind," He said, or may have said, or thought he said.
He blacked out again.
Here is the wind to take me home, he thought. My Valkyr. Surely I have fought bravely enough. Surely the gods will not mistake my skulking mission for cowardice.
Then, with a flash of white, she was there; chilling in her beauty, hair white as snow, and yet younger than he, in body. Her armour gleamed in the sun, uplifting poetry after his final dirge. Blue tattoo marking her left cheek, a scar across her right. She bent to him, and took his hand, said something.
Blackness. Fire. A ring opening, fire in the black, a ring of burning pitch, igniting and expanding. In the centre was blue, and white; fish, mermaids, warm orange lights, purple boats, a man talking on a cell phone, a hall of warriors, warriors drinking and singing...

"Wake up."
The Valkyr was back, except now her armour didn't gleam. Now Torg saw the grime on her neck, the blood on her armour, the dryness of her thin lips.
Torg lay propped in the corner where he had fell, and a flaming brand lay glaring beside him.
"I burnt your wound." She gestured to the lump in the sand. "A kidney. Can you walk?"
"I... I don't know. Where are the other two, the natives?"
She let him glance around the room. Both lay straight and flat in their own pools of blood, arranged with arms crossed on their chests, unmasked, a coin on each eye. Their faces were hideously mutilated, noses and ears and cheeks all carved to putrescence.
"You aren't hurt?"
"No," She breathed, distractedly.
He looked again at the younger cultist. Where the hands crossed at the heart, there seemed to be a gash there. Besides his own, it was the only wound on the body. One strike.
"You're her, aren't you? Aeron. The Thane's Champion."
"Yes. I'm honoured you know me." She held out her hand. "You're one of the scouts. Torg."
"Aye! Mead of my bones, the honour is mine!"
"You're free, then. Your Jarl is dead, and you fought well in the temple. Not one of their chieftains saw the sun rise."
"Ah," He began, fearful now that his moment of glory would be tarnished by truth. "Well, one did. He was ready for me, and fled."
Aeron looked him up and down, and then reached to his pack straps and hauled him to his feet. Her strength surprised him; his legs didn't touch the ground till she put them there. He should have expected as much, from one so tall, with a shadow so long. She spoke.
"He shall not see the moon, then."

To be continued...

©2009 Jaz McDougall