This one is from 2008, my first semester as an MFA and was heavily influenced by my study of the Old English language and culture.
The Walkers in Darkness
By K. M. Rice
The charred remains of the cabin stuck out of the snow like the bloodied ribs of a wolf kill. Derek exhaled a stream of white as he studied the shadowy remnants of his past, now hemmed in with pines. Snowflakes speckled the air, wafting down and about as the wind sighed around him. One landed on his eyelashes and he blinked it away.
“It’s been a year, brother.” The voice behind him cut through the solitude of the snow like an echo in a granite canyon. Derek dragged his pale eyes away from the ruins and to his sibling. Gregers was only two years older yet carried his shoulders with the weight of an ancient warrior. His tawny hair fell in his face in oily clumps, curtaining his angular cheekbones and ice-like eyes. He sniffed then ran his teeth along the inside of his lower lip, the skin of his chin rippling his facial hair like a hawk rustling its feathers. The wolf furs clinging to his shoulders gathered flecks of white that melted, darkening the fur into stained points.
“I know,” was Derek’s somber reply as he looked away from his brother and down to the seal skin of his boots.
Snow sucked and crunched beneath Gregers’ step as he approached his sibling, his eyes cast to the abandoned timber. “You still don’t speak of it.”
“There’s nothing to speak of,” Derek grumbled as he turned his back on his former home, adjusting his belt around his furs.
Gregers’ bark-like laugh startled Derek and he glanced over his shoulder as the older Dane spoke. “Nothing to speak of? Little brother,” Gregers said the last words almost pityingly as he rested a chapped hand on his shoulder. “I return from my years away to discover that your heart’s blood was spilled in this place. Have you no fire for vengeance?”
“It will not bring back Hilde or Wulfric.”
Gregers raised his chin, looking down at his brother through slit eyes. “And you feel no anger? No lust to shed the blood of those who slew your wife and son?”
Derek swallowed, the muscles of his throat taught. His voice was hoarse. “No.”
Gregers’ upper lip twitched in a sneer. “Then I will for you.”
Derek held his gaze for a breath then shouldered past him, trudging back to the snow they had trodden in a path to this place. The skin below his nose chilled with the wind as the wet in his breath cooled on the moustache of his bearded face. He heard Gregers’ sigh as he fell into step behind him.
“Who were they? What were their looks? You have held your tongue, and your sword, for too long. No wonder folk think you a coward.”
“It will do no good.”
Gregers quickened his step until he was abreast of his companion. The light of his pale blue eyes cut through his hair like the brightness of a lake behind a grove of pines. “Were they a band of Celts?”
“No.”
Gregers furrowed his brow. “They did not cross the whale-road?”
“No.” Derek glanced to his brother then focused on the mountainside descent ahead of him.
“Then from whence did they come? I wish to pay the blood debt for you but you must give me some-”
“They were not men!” Derek snapped as he pivoted to face his sibling.
Gregers stood, his lips parting in silent question as he searched his brother’s face. Derek’s auburn hair blew over his shoulder as he stood his ground. For a moment the two were as stags with locked antlers.
Gregers licked his lips and his voice was a whisper. “Of what do you speak?”
Derek shook his head, unblinking. “They came with screeching and howling and talons.”
“Talons?”
The younger man’s broad chest was heaving. “They were not of our kind.”
“…Derek… what you say cannot be-”
“I know what I saw! I nearly died that night or must I once more show you the scars?”
Gregers held up a hand as Derek began to loosen his belt around his sagging middle. “No, you don’t.”
Derek’s shoulders slowly sagged as the wind cut across the open expanse below the mountainside, whipping through the trees, making the giants groan as a few disgorged the snow from their limbs. He looked away from the face of his brother and out to the bright pale of the snow-covered plains hugging the bank of the fjord. The undulating water below shimmered and rose and fell like the glistening scales of a hoary serpent. He emptied his lungs of air, his vision fogging with the rush of mist before he took another breath, the cold coating his throat as a quiver ran through the muscles. “They were not the sons of men.”
Gregers studied his brother’s profile as he let the words entangle his mind ere he looked over his shoulder towards the gutted homestead. The trees creaked anew from another gust and the snapping of a branch from the weight of the snow cracked in the distance. Gregers stilled his breathing to better listen, the swaying of the boughs suddenly seeming as arms swinging at an unreachable opponent. He took a backwards step towards his fellow Dane, his eyes still trained on the forest behind him. “…If they were not of our kind then what were they?”
Smoke was rising from the hearths in the village further south and inland from the fjord, disappearing into the overcast sky. Derek studied the dark undersides of the clouds on the horizon for several heartbeats before he answered. “Walkers in darkness.”
~~~*~~~
The hall of Aegward suffered no icy chill to seep through its planks, despite the raging of the wind outside its walls. Laughter bounced off of the high rafters and off of the gold-wound pillars embedded beside the throne of the ring-giver, Théoden Hréthel. The monolith of a man had his spine slumped against the back of his throne, watching the dancing eyes of his hall-companions through his good eye. The weight of scar tissue made his right eye half-lidded, giving the grizzled reds of his bearded countenance the shape of a sigh. He shifted his weight to drink from the mead goblet his wife handed to him before she continued down the line of the mead benches, offering the sanctified cup to each man in turn.
Hréthel glanced down at the panting wolfhound at his side. The dog’s curled and wiry fur caught the torch and firelight like dingy copper. He perked his ears as the musician in the corner absently plinked a string of his lyre, his eyes distant as he sifted through songs in his mind, deciding which story to share next. Seated beside the song-shaper were the brothers Derek and Gregers, both seemingly wrapped in the darkness of the night sky outside and unaware of the hearth fires burning within the hall. Gregers emptied his third goblet with a flourish while Derek cupped his own, brooding over the amber of what was once the treasure of bees.
Pressing against the armrests of his carved throne, Hréthel rose and strode over to the siblings and dug his fingers into Derek’s shoulder in a firm grasp. Both brothers looked up to him as he released the younger of the two. Hréthel’s voice rattled, echoing from the chamber of his chest. “It has been a year, Derek son of Ecglaf who was my shoulder-companion as a young man. It is time for you to shed your grief.”
Derek looked away from the larger man and took a swig of his mead. “It is not so easy with me, my lord.”
“I know,” said Gregers as he looked up at Hréthel through the matted mess of his clumped bangs, “that you all think my brother a coward for not seeking vengeance but there is no weregyld to be had, my lord; no cattle to be paid to replace the lives stolen from his house. He lives with nothing where once was his heart.”
Hréthel grunted. “Pain ebbs with time. Take another wife. Make another child. And if no woman here will have you, perhaps it is time leave our land. You’ll find all wounds heal given enough winters.”
Gregers’ gaze traced his brother’s countenance, measuring his response, waiting for Derek to speak of the dark ill that lay at the heart of his ravaging, but the younger man seemed content to continue to stare at his drink. Gregers spoke through grit teeth. “My lord, there is no payment to be had for it was not men who did this.”
Hréthel leaned over to brace a palm against the boards of the table, causing the musician to lean to the side to avoid being pressed against the man’s girth. Hréthel raised his brows at the unresponsive Derek. “It was women? Then your shame must be great.”
The song-shaper beside them laughed as Derek meekly met his king’s gaze. “No, my lord. They were… beasts.”
Hréthel’s pock-marked face, like the mottled iron of an old sword, twisted at the words. “Beasts?”
Gregers looked over the head of his brother to the king. “They walked on two legs and had bodies covered in thick fur,” he paused as he pointed to the wolfhound still lying at the feet of Hréthel’s throne, “like a hound’s. They were big.” He glanced around the hall at the retainers, ignoring the handful of eager eavesdropping faces that were now turned to him. “Larger than any man in this room.”
One of the listeners, Bearn, a fair-haired youth who was just old enough to take a woman to bed, shifted his gaze from his fellows to Gregers as he loudly called for silence. Most ceased their talk to look for the source of the callow voice and one further down the table, Harold, bristled at the demand of the youth. “You whelp – what is it that-”
Hréthel straightened and lifted a hand and the warriors fell silent. The thump of goblets being set upon the table and the hiss and snap of the fire filled the void of speech. Gregers surveyed his hall-companions before looking to the king as he rose. Hréthel nodded curtly and Gregers flicked some of the hair out of his eyes before sniffing loudly. His voice slid across the table like spilled water. “A year ago my brother and his family were attacked by a foe not of our make. They came under the cloak of darkness, hurling stones at his home; stomping and howling and splintering boards.”
“They were covered in dark hair,” Derek added as he rose as well, finally looking about at his comrades with fleeting glances. “And were even less kempt than my brother.”
Gregers smirked as several chuckled.
“They had an ill-favored look, as if they dwelled in watery lands. Their hair was clumped and hung like moss from the boughs of their arms and the barrels of their chests. They smelled of,” he hesitated as he clenched his fist before him, searching his word-hoard for the means to convey the hackle-raising scent, “skunkweed and urine, rotting flesh and the sour of swine dung.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t my wife and mother-in-law?” dark-haired Harold shouted, stirring a guffaw from those surrounding him.
Gregers pointed at him with a lopsided grin. “I’m telling her you said that, Harold.”
Harold laughed as he drew his sword, letting it dangle from his floppy wrist as his rosy cheeks shone in their tautness. “Then your flesh shall kiss my edge.”
“So long as that’s all I’m kissing,” Gregers murmured to further laughter before the blonde Bearn waved a hand at the others in annoyance.
“But what of these beasts?” the youth asked. “We had thought your son to have been killed out of payment for a debt to the thane across the water who-”
“No,” Gregers firmly answered for his portly sibling. “My brother owes no one anything except death to those who have wronged him.”
“Oh please,” Harold drawled as he sheathed his sword. “You honestly believe his words? He speaks lies to hide his cowardice-”
“We have all heard the tale of Beowulf and Grendel,” interrupted the gravelly voice of Hréthel and all fell silent once more, gazing at their chieftain who had stepped back to lean against the wall of the hall.
“Aye,” said Harold. “But that is a story, my king. Made up by some shaper such as this.” He gestured to the thin musician who shot him a darting glance then studied his lyre. “There is no more truth to it than there is to the tales of Beowulf and the dragon.”
“That is not true,” Gregers snapped, his drink-loosed tongue lending more fire to his voice than was needed. “I have heard of king Beowulf and his successor Wyglaf. Though he now resides in the Halls of Valhalla he is still spoken of in the land of the Geats. There is a high tower built along the shore in memory of him. He was a great man.”
Harold pressed his lips together as he felt the weight of the eyes of his hall-companions settling upon him. He swallowed his alcohol-tinged spit. “Then I apologize, Gregers son of Ecglaf. Not all of us have traveled as widely as you. We can’t all be swords for hire.”
Gregers nodded his acceptance of the apology as Bearn spoke again. “…Then the Grendel… he was flesh and sinew? He walked the land of the Geats as he may now walk ours?”
“Two of them,” Derek grimly concurred. “One had breasts like a woman. It was a female.”
“By the gods…” the lad breathed. “What did they do to you?”
Derek’s lips parted as bile began to tickle his throat. His mouth moved yet formed no words.
“They sundered his home,” Gregers spoke for him once more. “The falling thatch caught in the flames of the hearth and when he and Hilde and Wulfric tried to flee they were attacked by those man-scathers.”
Derek studied his brother through the unshed tears that stung his eyes.
Harold cocked his head at Derek. “And why have you not spoken of this until now?”
“I… I feared the mockery,” Derek responded, his gaze shying away.
“I don’t understand,” the youth spoke again. “Why would they attack you?”
Derek shook his head, his eyes cast to the knots in the planks of the table. “I do not know. I had never laid eyes on them before.”
Harold sighed as he exchanged a look with the man seated beside him and Gregers rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
Hréthel began to thump his way back to his throne. “Shaper!” he growled at the musician who looked to him. “You travel from village to village. What say you of these dark tidings?”
The minstrel stiffened, curling his harp towards his torso. “There are tales of many monsters in this middle-earth,” he slowly offered. “Tales of gore and tales of war.” The queen, sitting with her attendants in the corner behind the throne, ceased plaiting another’s hair to look at him. “Yet these beasts you speak of… I have heard tell from a woman in a village south of here. She was staying in the crowded home of her mother and her youngest child would not release her skirts. She had fled their home in the forest, she said, because her husband was away and they were visited by a bear-man. He strode into their clearing and began rummaging through whatever they kept outside. He broke the fence of their pen and stole a sheep. She had too much fear in her to try to chase him away. He disappeared into the trees after he had his prize but she gathered her children and fled the mountain, returning to the village.”
Gregers let out a deep breath. “…There is a whole tribe of them.”
Bearn licked his lips, hunching his shoulders. “Yet it sounds as if they dare not venture into halls – not like Grendel did. They’ve only been seen in the forest.”
Hréthel shrugged, now seated on his throne. “From what little we know of them.”
The youth swallowed and looked down to his drink before taking a large gulp.
Harold’s dark eyes were void of mirth as he looked to his thane. “What do we do, my king?”
“There’s only one thing to do, my lord,” barked Gregers as he stepped towards the chieftain, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Derek watched him with the eyes of an owl.
“You would hunt down these beasts?” Hréthel asked.
“Instead of lying in wait for the next unkind visit, yes, my lord Hréthel. It is not their place to claim all of the wood and slaughter or chase out any man, woman or child who dares dwell there.”
Hréthel’s eyebrow lowered over his good eye yet remained forever arched above his scarred eye. “And you would act alone?”
“Nay,” Gregers responded, gesturing behind him to his younger brother who had sat back down. “My brother would help me.” Derek looked away and hunched over his mead.
“Will he now?” Hréthel chuckled as he leaned back in his throne. Gregers exhaled through his nostrils and looked over his shoulder at the lump of his sibling. There was a steely glint in his eyes when he locked gazes with the king once more. “Yes, my lord Hréthel, shoulder-companion of my father. Derek and Gregers, the sons of Ecglaf, shall rid these woods of this foe.”
Harold laughed and murmured, “I’d rather have a cow as my companion than a Derek.” Several chuckled yet Gregers didn’t flinch.
The king held Gregers’ gaze. “And what if your actions, whatever they may be, provoke war with these beasts?”
“The theft of sheep and the frightening of women and children are hardly causes for war,” Harold chuckled. “Just leave them be, son of Ecglaf. If they exist they sound more like thieves than warriors.”
“They slew his family!” Bearn snapped, narrowing his eyes at Harold. “That is no token of peace. And if they are of the same lot as Grendel -”
“They will be slain ere they have the chance of staining these walls with blood,” Gregers finished for him.
Hréthel let out a wheezing sigh then nodded. “Very well then, eldest son of Ecglaf. If you do this, you shall have my gratitude and will be generously rewarded.”
A corner of Gregers’ mouth twitched in a small smile before he bowed, his shaggy hair, clumped with braids, falling over his shoulders. “Then it shall be done, my lord.” He pivoted and strode towards Derek. When the younger man made no move other than to continue to stare at his drink, Gregers grabbed him by the scruff of his linen and hauled him to his feet, dragging him to the hinged doors that led out of the hall.
~~~*~~~
“This is foolish,” Derek griped as he stepped into the cabin, dumping an armload of firewood beside the hearth then dusting the snow off of his shoulders.
Gregers glanced up from his whittling. “Actually, gathering fuel for our heat is rather useful.”
Derek narrowed his eyes at his brother then latched the door shut, muttering, “Always so clever…”
Gregers chuckled. They had spent the last few weeks repairing what they could of Derek’s old home. Felled trees replaced the charred stumps of posts and sod and logs rose where brittle charred walls once stood. The brothers had made as much of a din as they could while repairing the house, hoping to attract the beasts, but to no avail. The roof was thatched once more yet still leaked, the rain and melted snow pooling in muddy puddles on the dirt floor. Though most of the skeleton of the old home had been removed and burned in the hearth, the stinging stench of fire lingered. The two Danes were used to the scent by now as it had infested their hair and furs, marking them with a reminder of their quest. Though the interior of the dwelling now looked different than it had when Hilde and Wulfric’s laughter and song had danced within its walls, Derek felt branded by the memories he once made in this self same place.
He sighed as he sat down on the stump that served as his chair, tucking his stiff hands beneath his armpits, feeling their joints begin to loosen with warmth. He studied the pale shape his brother was carving. “What is that one?” He narrowed his eyes at the whittled lump. “Yet another wolf?”
A corner of Gregers’ mouth lifted in response as he nodded, glancing to the dozen or so wolf carvings that stood on the shelf above his bed.
Derek watched the calm of his brother’s half-hidden gaze as he gracefully flicked his wrist,
peeling off curlings of pine as he worked. His movements were so smooth and calculated, so self-assured despite the drudgery of their task that Derek felt something in his chest bristle with quills. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it?”
Gregers looked up at him, flicking some of the hair out of his eyes. “What?”
“Being here. Helping me. Fighting a beast we have yet to see neither hide nor hair of. It’s all just a way for you to pass the time.” Gregers didn’t respond but held his brother’s gaze with the same irritating composure, so the younger man continued. “You have no home, no family – no wife and children. You cannot honestly even fathom my loss. You kill for a price, caring naught for the families destroyed in your wake. You’re happy to while your time away; using it however best suits your whimsy for the moment,” Derek halted, taking a breath.
Gregers continued to study him for the span of a few breaths before sighing deeply through his nose, sniffing then swallowing. “We all sleep in wait of death, little brother. The fault is not only with me.”
“No,” Derek responded as he shook his head. “I am not like you. I’ve never been like you. You may be able to survive on the meat you’ve been hunting for us but I need some bread in my belly.”
Gregers glanced down to the younger man’s belt which only just made it around his girth. “I can see that.”
Derek’s face flushed. “Leave!”
“To what end?” he snarled and Derek leaned back as Gregers snapped out of his composure, spitting as he spoke. “To leave my derelict brother here to die? You are the last of our line, Derek – I will not live to have sons, this I have always known. But you – you have a chance, little brother. You enjoy the peace of a settled life while I can barely sleep in one place for more than a fortnight lest an avenging son hunts me down to seek vengeance for a faceless father I slew many winters ago. I know you still grieve, but you are free, Derek.”
Derek looked away from the heaving chest of his brother. The fire in the hearth crackled then popped as a sizzling store of sap was dug into by the flames. Derek’s voice was barely louder than the hissing heat. “…And of what use is freedom when I am a coward?”
“Therein lies the answer to your question.”
The younger of the two hesitatingly looked back to his sibling.
Gregers bared his canines in a twitching grin. “You asked why I’m here. I’m here to help my brother regain his honor.” He cocked his head when Derek looked down to his folded hands. “Don’t force yourself into exile like I did.”
Derek sighed, stretching his lower jaw before looking up to meet his sibling’s gaze once more. “I shall try not to.”
“Good.” Gregers looked back down to his carving as he resumed digging the small blade into the wood and Derek caught the ghost of a smile on his face. “Now, go make yourself useful and skin that brace of conies.”
Derek pressed his palms against his thighs as he rose, walking over to the dead rabbits hanging from the wall, wondering at his brother’s ability to seemingly lure them out of their burrows and onto the shafts of his arrows. “Gregers,” he sighed his brother’s name as he looked at the dead rabbits. “You really need a wife.”
His brother’s barking laugh was halted when the two heard a thump against the side of the cabin. Their eyes locked onto each other’s as they listened. For several long minutes, the rush of their own heartbeats filled their ears, nearly louder than the occasional hiss of the wind through a crack in the wall or the hole in the roof sucking out the smoke. Gregers parted his lips to suggest that the thump had merely been a cone falling from a tree when there was another on the opposite side of the house.
Gregers dropped his half-shaped wolf and grabbed their swords from their bedsides, handing Derek his own as something landed on the roof with a muffled thump. He kept his voice low and angled at his sibling’s ear. “Is this how it began before?”
Derek hastily nodded, flexing and stretching his fingers around the hilt of his weapon, his wide eyes trained on the latched door. Gregers crept over to the opposite wall and leaned an ear towards the logs, staring ahead as he listened intently. Another rock hit a crack, crumbling some of the mud caulking. Gregers inched to the hole and Derek started when what sounded like a large branch was torn off of a nearby tree. The mercenary crouched to cautiously peer through the hole. The snow was still bright despite the fading light of dusk. In the distance he could see the trunks of pines and their litter but couldn’t spy the source of the crunching snow off to the side as something circled the dwelling.
Derek backed over to his brother. “What do we do?”
Gregers hastily motioned for him to be silent as he continued to listen. Derek’s breathing was getting heavier and Gregers shot him an annoyed glance then suddenly leapt at him, shoving him backwards as a large rock struck the brim of the smoke hole in the roof, crashing through the thatching to land with a thump on the trodden loam beside the fire as mildewing wheat stalk, reeds and pine boughs showered down. Gregers released his brother to furiously stomp out the thatching that had fallen into the fire and had begun to smolder and flame. He hissed as the bottom and sides of his sealskin boots were singed.
Derek watched with his sword gripped in both hands. Gregers jerked his head, flopping his clumped hair to the side as he blew some of his bangs out of the way, looking to his brother with a deep line between his eyebrows. Derek squeezed his handle tighter in an attempt to hide the shaking of his arms. He licked his lips, whispering, “Are you alright?”
Gregers snarled and stomped over to him. “We must face them together. They’re trying to chase us out so-”
He was interrupted by a loud, guttural howl like the screeching of a horse being disemboweled. The two brothers cringed as a creature on the opposite side of the cabin returned the bellow before launching another boulder at the side of the house, splintering some of the wood and making the frame groan under the altered weight of the roof.
Gregers’ head whipped from the weakened wall to the door. “At my signal we charge and attack the nearest of the beasts. As one.”
Derek’s chest was shaking now as his arms quivered.
Gregers padded over to the door and undid the latch, motioning for his brother to approach. When Derek was at his side, he eased open the door a crack and peered out. One of the creatures was striding forward from the line of trees, its dark shape barely discernable amidst the contrast of the hoary snow. Its limbs were long and sinewy, moving with the gait of a loping bear. The shoulders appeared hunched for the neck was shorter than a man’s and the legs bent at the knee with the torso leaning forward, as if the creature were constantly peering at something on the forest floor. It stopped once it circled around to the side of the dwelling, seemingly unnoticing the two men observing it. Obsidian skinned fingers curled around a large rock with snow and moss still clinging to its side. The whole of the animal was covered in long, dark shaggy fur save the face, out of which stuck a large nose like a man’s. Gregers furrowed his brow as the beast looked to what the warrior discerned by the crunching snow to be one of its fellows.
Gregers leaned back and eased the door shut, looking to his brother. “There are two on that side. What say you?”
Derek shook his head with a line between his brows. “Brother…”
Gregers lunged his face forward so that their noses nearly touched. “This is no time for weakness, Derek. We’ll bring back the heads of these beasts and you’ll be hailed a hero. Prove your quality!”
Derek grabbed Gregers by the arm when his brother reached to open the door again, hissing his name. “Gregers!”
“What?” he snapped.
Derek’s lower jaw stuck out as he took several shuddering breaths. “These beasts did not kill my family.”
Gregers pulled his head back and stiffened, blinking at his brother.
“Hilde and Wulfric,” Derek continued in a quaking voice, “were burned in the fire. She ran outside with him as her skirts smoldered and threw herself upon the snow.”
Gregers shook his head. “Why would you-”
“I could not move. Hilde was screaming and I could not move to help her. I was so afraid, Gregers. I’m a coward. After the beasts left I searched for her and Wulfric… I crawled to their sides… they were dead. Their burns had gravely wounded them and the cold…”
Gregers looked away and closed his eyes as another rock smacked against the side of the cabin. “You should have spoken of this sooner.”
“…Forgive me.”
Gregers’ ice-blue eyes looked up to his brother’s through his bangs before he slapped a hand to his shoulder, squeezing it tightly. “It is done.” He sighed and raked back his hair, looking about the weakening cabin as he sniffed. “It was still these beasts who were the cause of your undoing.” He shook out his shoulders and readied his sword, looking to Derek with a lopsided grin. “Let them taste the fury of the line of Ecglaf.” He flung open the door and a battle cry ripped from his chest as he charged across the snow at the nearest of the beasts. Derek raised his sword and hurried out after him, his eyes failing in the near-darkness of the sky as he followed the shape of his screaming brother.
The animal he was charging straightened to its full height and swung out at Gregers with a bare arm, embedding its flesh into the blade of his parrying steel. The beast whined in a pained roar and withdrew its bleeding limb yet before it could strike against Gregers once more the Dane had pulled his sword back and, with both hands on the hilt, forced it in-between the creature’s ribs, plunging his way into the coffer of its chest. Derek caught up to his brother as the other yanked the sword out with a grunt then readied to strike again. Two other beasts were hurrying forward with guttural chortles and the injured creature backed away from Gregers’ blade, clinging to its wounded side before stumbling onto one leg.
It looked up at Gregers with eyes of dark brown, its wide lips parted in a pant and the warrior stiffened, cocking his head as his gaze met the creature’s, an icy tendril slithering down his spine. The other two beasts were nearly upon them as Derek twisted his back to press against his brother’s, bracing his sword to impale the first of the two. “Gregers!” he shouted in warning. Gregers looked away from the man-like eyes of the dying creature in time to raise his sword to hack at the charging menace in unison with his brother. The stench of swine dung and rancid milk stung their noses from the nearness of the beasts.
The second animal grunted as the blades dug into its flesh. Gregers grit his teeth and his thigh muscles burned as he leaned his weight into his blade, forcing it deeper into the animal’s abdomen as Derek withdrew his sword to parry the raised arm of the third beast, dully registering the lumps on its chest. She wrenched her shoulder and her arm came down with such force that his sword arm was knocked groundwards and he gasped as her fist snapped his collarbone. He crumpled onto the ground and curled in on himself as he heard the thumps of large feet stomping around his head. Gregers howled then fell silent.
At his brother’s scream, Derek forced himself to unfurl and hacked at the nearest hairy leg with his uninjured right arm before scrambling backwards, plowing up snow around him. His blade had only dealt the leg a glancing blow and as he looked up, he saw that he’d struck the female who was now striding away from him, gnashing her teeth and heading for a dark lump a few yards distant at the base of a tree. The still-moaning bodies of the other two beasts lay writhing in the stained snow. One let out a low groan as it grabbed onto the trunk of a tree, attempting to hoist itself up yet thumping back into the crunching cold as the bark tore under its grasp.
The dark shape in the snow was flailing, trying to rise as the female approached. “Gregers!” Derek bellowed as he struggled to his feet, his left arm limply at his side. He stumbled through the drift towards his disarmed brother who was now attempting to limp away from the approaching female. Derek scanned the snow surrounding the two, looking for his brother’s blade, noticing that the drift was not trodden save for the dents being made by the creature. The awareness that she’d thrown his brother several yards lent fire to his step.
“Derek!” Gregers yelped as he continued to stumble away from the beast.
The fear in his older brother’s voice flooded Derek’s veins with fury and he screamed as he charged, bracing his sword in his right arm, impaling the female in the back. She arched in a silent howl and stumbled as he withdrew his sword then backed up, panting, readying to strike again yet hesitating when she coughed, swaying. She turned her face to him with a snarl on her lips, her teeth bared ere she clumsily lunged at him. He had only to back up out of her reach and she fell onto her knees, panting and wheezing. Derek glanced to the other two bodies, now still, and began to back up towards his brother. The female stumbled to her feet and started to trudge away from him and over to her companions, lowly moaning with each step.
Derek turned his back on her and hastily closed the handful of strides between him and his brother. Gregers was standing, watching Derek with a lopsided smile before wilting onto his side. Derek fell to his knees beside him, wincing as he jarred his injured shoulder, his chest heaving. “Gregers?”
The older man was coughing up blood that slicked his lips, wheezing, until his coughing morphed into laughter. Derek dropped his sword and reached for the belt holding his brother’s furs around his torso but the chill of Gregers’ weak hand upon his stayed him. “Don’t trouble yourself,” he chuckled, still coughing out spurts of blood with spittle. “I feel the ice inside.”
Derek gently pushed his hand away with a shake of his head, reaching to move the clothing to attempt to examine his wounds in the wan light of the crescent moon, but Gregers’ loud wheeze stopped him. “She would have…” he paused for another raspy breath, “torn my head from my body… but you stopped her.” He let out another gurgling laugh. “I would have been… killed by a woman!” His laughter grew until it subsided into a fit of coughing.
Derek brushed some of the hair off of Gregers’ forehead, able to meet his brother’s un-shrouded eyes for the first time. His chest and breathing ways felt as if they were being constricted by the sinews of some unseen coil. “Your ribs are broken – a healer may be able to-”
“Nay,” Gregers wheezed. “My bone-locks are burst. I shall be in the halls of our fathers before the dawn.”
A gust of wind chilled the skin of Derek’s cheek beneath a tear. “Brother…”
Gregers smiled weakly, his face seemingly as deathly pale as the snow in the hoary light. “I’m proud of you, little brother.” He gasped for air, his breathing a low whine.
Derek bit his lip as another tear chilled his cheek, grabbing his brother’s hand and squeezing it tightly. “The sons of my great-grandchildren shall speak your praise.”
Gregers’ chest shuddered as he struggled for another breath through the pressure around his lungs. “…Just so long as you lie… and tell them I was a handsome… man.”
Derek laughed as a tear fell, denting the snow. “Whatever you wish, Gregers.”
A corner of Gregers’ lips twitched in a smile before he shuddered as he wheezed for another breath. He looked up at Derek through the dimming light of his half-lidded eyes. “Thank you… for giving me a good death.”
Derek’s lips pressed together as he squeezed his brother’s cold hand with both of his. “You die with honor.”
Gregers’ breathing came in halting bursts as he inclined his head the slightest bit in acknowledgement. For several more moments his chest heaved as he floundered for breath. Derek tightly held his hand, weeping as he watched his brother’s death throes. When Gregers’ body shuddered and his eyes filmed over, stilling, Derek gasped out a sob. He gently shut his brother’s eyelids then brushed more of the hair from his forehead before pressing his lips to the chilled skin.
The snow had soaked his trousers and numbed his hands and face but he cared not as he rose and found Gregers’ sword near the bodies of the two dead creatures. The footprints of the female, dotted by blood, led off into the forest. Derek studied the dark shapes of the trees for several heartbeats before approaching one of the still beasts. With only one arm, beheading the animal made him sweat but he hacked through the sinews and bones until it was free from its perch.
He left the sundered face beside the door as he hooked his good arm beneath Gregers’ shoulders and dragged his body back into the house. Panting, he returned outside and cleaned his brother’s sword off in the snow before resting it on Gregers’ chest and arranging his arms and hands to hold the hilt; returning the biting edge to its master’s grasp before the stiffness of death settled into his empty frame. “May you swiftly find your way to the halls of our fathers and wait for me there, Gregers, firstborn of Ecglaf.”
Derek let his eyes linger on the red-stained lips and peaceful face of his brother in the light of fire’s embers ere he staggered to his feet and left the dwelling, securing the door shut behind him. He grabbed the head of the beast and began the trudge towards the trail that would lead down to the coastal plain and the village. Once his hearth-companions heard of the battle and the noble end of one who was born among them they would hasten to assist in bearing the body to rest.
The night was clear and Derek looked up at the stars as he numbly left the cabin behind, trudging forth. He adjusted his sweaty grip on the stenching hair of the fen-dweller, trying to hold it a ways from him so that it didn’t bump his thigh with its staining gore.
The remaining son of Ecglaf began his descent down the mountainside as a lone wolf’s cry wafted in the distance, haunting the high reaches of the swaying pines that hissed and sighed in the night wind.
~~~*~~~
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