Despite the roar of the atmosphere giving way for the two large masses which were speeding down, down, quickly and more so still, through its web-like folds and yet seemingly picking up the pace despite what resistance the air should have forced upon them, and the reverberations of the chorus of Valkyries which had grown exponentially louder and more profoundly visceral with each inch the Gnome traveled toward his certain death, a calm stillness overcame his being, a silence sharp as any blade or broken glass cutting its invisible path to what remained of Billuh’s mechanical auditory system. Soon he would be feasting, drinking, doing battle with the greatest warriors to have ever lived --, who’s to say, perhaps he would even meet someone who could explain what the primordial force of sheer manly brutality which had brought him back from the dead was and why it had chosen him of all the warriors to have ever lived? Why shouldn’t he be calm and still, a worthy challenge is all he had sought out in life and dying with the knowledge that he had finally found an opponent who was every bit the warrior he was while engaged in the combat which he so loved is the greatest of deaths Billuh could have hoped for.
“Hrah! A Gnome’s name be Billuh Bob. Billuh Bob Gnome remember mighty giant Gonad well, when together we feast ‘n drank ‘n do glorious battle in Great Mead Hall!!” Time seemed to slow to a crawl in this, the last moment of the life of Billuh Bob Gnome. Should it have been a moment spent in reflection, or wonder of what adventures and pleasures the next world might stand to offer, of regrets over things not said or done in life that were now too late to rectify or accomplish, perhaps even a moment spent in prayer to the All Maker the Gnome would soon stand before as one of the chosen few warriors of the Last Battle? Maybe. Instead the moment was spent in the complete stillness of satisfied contentment, just as one might sit in an armchair sipping at a tumbler of a strangely named though pleasingly strong foreign spirit or flagon of good ‘ole Gnomish ale after a long, enjoyably tiring and particularly productive day, clear and empty minded, and oddly happy with the way things had worked out. Sure, he was going to die, no way out of that now, but with this death he would seal his name in the tales of those few who escaped from the collapsed arena, the saga of the epic battle of Gonad the Barbarian and Billuh Bob Gnome would be told throughout the ages.
This moment in and of itself wasn’t all it seemed, however, something was clearly wrong here. Though Billuh had no eyes with which to see, the feeling --, no, the knowledge that the world had stopped around him was as plain as though he was watching his descent cease in mid-air through some trick of witchcraft. This gave the otherwise stalwart Gnome a sudden start, the instantaneous soul crushing understanding that not only had he been passed over by the Valkyries after being crushed into what must have amounted to a gooey, metallic pancake on the solid stone floor of the cavern despite having fought an epic battle against a titan of an opponent, but that yet again he would remain in this cold, dark, lonely void, blind and deaf, unable to quantify the passage of time and left to drift aimlessly for eternity. Something between a scream and a shuttering moan welled up in Billuh’s heaving chest, though no sound came forth from his lips --, mute as well. He had been returned just where he had left off, senseless but for the conscious awareness that he was without ability to interact with anything, even the ones and zeros of the Other would never again come to interact with him, it had died as the Gnome had been returned to life. Billuh was in Hell.
Perhaps the Gnome should have spent his last moment of life praying. The afterlife in Valhalla he had imagined would be his, if only because of the obvious interest the Valkyries had shown in this, his last battle, couldn’t be any more different then the void hell he had wandered and drifted through for so many sleepless years up until this point, and would so again for the rest of eternity. Had this all been a fever dream? Had any of it been real? Would he truly once more be condemned to this unchanging, unwavering, unflinching torture? That is to say, until something did change. Visions of monstrous snakes and fire came before Billuh’s mind’s eye, a great battle looming in the not so distant future, creeping, crawling, carnivorous things skulking and lurking in the deep, dark recesses awaiting the dread war horns which announced the beginning of the great battle, the last battle. One in which Billuh as well as Gonad would do battle together against the pervading darkness before the end of everything, standing high atop a snow peaked mountain in a land foreign to Billuh alongside seven other figures, basked in the gleaming light of the Valkyries who watched on sullenly above them awaiting their final collection of souls, the only light to be found in the darkness with exception of the seemingly world consuming fire, and clothed only in glorious facial hair and the burning embrace of the Beardforce which united their number.
He wasn’t dead, not yet, anyway. For a few more fleeting moments Billuh had something to do, a divine calling that must be accomplished and would be rewarded by ascending to the Great Hall of the All Maker. This is why he had been returned, called forth from the clutches of the void nothingness of death by the Beardforce. He could see it all clearly now, as though suddenly something of a seer or oracle, not flashes of the life he had lived which many of those who brush up against death later speak of having witnessed, but an open eyed understanding of what was to come, the true purpose behind these seemingly random happenstance events. Billuh could neither read nor write well enough to record what he saw, and there certainly wasn’t time to discuss any of it with anyone who could before his death --, but even if he could have, it wouldn’t matter, wouldn’t change anything. It was foretold, would come to pass with or without anyone’s prior knowledge. Having been given the chance, however, he would inform the opponent who had featured so prevalently in the kaleidoscopic tableau of disparate images forcing their way to the forefront of Billuh’s mind as though drawn to him in the same manner as the Beardforce had been, primal, powerful, protruding in its call.
“All Maker sees far, has shown Billuh. Not join Billuh nor Baldor or the other great warriors this day shall mighty Gonad. Great battle first must Gonad face. Big Snake returns to Mountain of Trolls. Big Snake brings Big Family, Big Family brings Big Fire, Last Fire. Gonad must return, train students in manly way of Beard. Only when Beardlords of Beardhold living and dead number eight and one shall Last Battle be fought. Gonad will grasp Big Wolf by fang and be eaten, but Twilight of Gonad will not come until Gonad in turn eat Big Wolf. Gonad reunite with friend Baldor only then, feast and drink and fight in Great Mead Hall with other warriors for a time before Last Battle, Last Fire, at Hall of Beardlords during last days of May. Horn important, blow must son of Baldor when ninth Beardlord of Beardhold is called and Beardlords return to three once more, only son of Baldor blow horn and only then, as Last Fire consumes Fremennik and all hope fade away and burns to ash in fires of Geilinor at End of Tingy-tings. Place horn in Hall of Beardlords must Gonad, there must it be when son of Baldor need it, protect it must Gonad and students of the way of the Beard or Big Snake will devour Gielinor,”
Billuh was without sight save for the visions flashing before his eyes, but Gonad was not. He would see that everything had, for a few brief moments, actually stopped. Drips and drops of water from the cavern walls, spurts of blood, bits of bone and mechanical scrap which had come undone and been forcibly removed during their altercation having fallen from body toward solid earth and yet were left hanging in the air, the combatants bodies held together and seemingly weightless along with the rest of the falling garbage, and all besides the Gnome’s premonition and Gonad’s own voice had fallen completely silent. This was not the silence of a crisp, chill autumn morning in a hunting cabin in the country somewhere, far removed from large human settlements and in such sense seemingly silent, but that of a windless, sunless forest whose fauna had detected a nearby predator and ceased all those noisy bodily functions, and who needs those anyway, in a desperate attempt not to be the first to get picked off. Images of fire flashed across what remained of Billuh’s one eye plainly visible for all so interested to see, though it would be unlikely that Gonad would notice --, he could plainly see why the world had forgotten to enforce such arcane notions as gravity and the laws of physics.
The light was soft, warm, embracing --, that of a crackling hearth and spitting pit roast after hiking twelve miles through a fierce blizzard wet, weak and weary on one’s way back home, though the faint whisper of a deep, pervading melancholy was unmistakable, as though the light fully possessed the knowledge that though returned home it was less a member of the party, lost somewhere along the way and left in the snow, the both of you now alone. The two Beardlords fighting in this cavern, however, were not alone. A being floated alongside them, nearly as large as Gonad, and a whole hell of a lot prettier --, seven feet tall, hair the color of soft gold worn down and resting at the shoulders in length, and piercing eyes of glacial ice radiating with the same soft glow as filled the rest of the cavern, wearing a nearly sheer white dress with grey trim pinned with a gold and emerald brooch over the right shoulder and a winged helmet the color of silvery blue beveled steel, a pattern etched and gilded in gold with a diamond shaped blue stone set at the center brow, carrying a massive green hefted spear tipped with a blade of the same color as the helmet, along with soft brown leather sandals.
The Fremennik may well have recognized her, if only from the pictures, had perhaps even come across her at one time or another. This was Eir, whether Valkyrie or Goddess it could not be said, but she was imposing enough a celestial, spiritual being to have apparently stopped time to allow Billuh to deliver his premonition to Gonad. The awe inspiring appearance of such a being on the mortal coil could not be understated, of course, and no doubt may very well have left the Fremennik speechless. How often does such a creature deem it necessary to personally come before mortals before their deaths, even such mortals as the Beardlords? Once, twice, a dozen times throughout the entire known history of the world? As Billuh finished speaking the soft glow began to gently recede, and with it Eir from Gonad’s view as time and the natural order slowly returned to their proper functions, the darkness of the cavern alongside downward momentum returning slowly as the visage of the Divinity equally slowly grew increasingly transparent, fading away just as she had so suddenly appeared and watching, waiting, allowing a few moments for Gonad to respond to Billuh or perhaps say something to her, though for no action that would take any longer, until the pair came to within an inch of the ground below and her image faded entirely save for what appeared to be the faint outline of an outstretched hand.
It was snowing, not the fierce blizzard of a winter storm but the still, windless drifts of a high peaked mountain top in the later half of spring time, without any of the belligerent fury of the earlier months but not yet having quite given up on the last fleeting snowfalls before the melting truly began in earnest. A Great Hall stood out no more than fifty feet away, though it didn’t appear to be occupied, or nearly so magnanimous as something befitting the hall of the All Maker. Gonad no doubt would recognize that this was somewhere he had been before, and not where he could have expected even three seconds ago to wind up. This was Beardhalla, or what was left of the place. If anyone had been alive inside, they were no longer. The structure itself was half smashed, and the damage appeared to have been done very recently, images of snakes devouring their own tails in a backdrop of flames were painted on every exterior wall in blood. It had been tossed by the Snake Cult, clearly they had been looking for something. He no doubt would also realize that, though still stark naked he was completely without injury, as though nothing of the epic battle which had just taken place had been anything but the fever dream of a great warrior wishing for an opponent who could present him a legitimate challenge. Nothing, that is, but for what lay at his feet.
The beaten, mangled, and broken body of Billuh Bob Gnome lay in the snow, slowly, steadily being buried underneath the falling drifts. Though Gonad appeared to have escaped the cavern without injury, it was clear that Billuh had not been so lucky --, the Gnome hadn’t been healed of his metallic wounds, and from what it appeared had indeed hit the cavern floor at full force without his barbarian opponent in tow. What was left was something akin to metal scrap that had been put into a furnace and only lightly stamped out a single time, not yet fit for properly recycling into new parts. There was no flesh left on the steel of his endoskeleton, and of the biological tissue which had been only the mighty golden beard remained collecting snowflakes on the ground and surprisingly neither burned to smithereens or lost along the way. The engine that was his heart was exposed, cut cleanly into two pieces, and subsequently smashed as if by a car crusher. The long protrusion which housed Billuh’s artificial brain that had been covered by his conical leather hat seemed to be in good repair, however. It had probably been severed early, cushioned from the worst of the force by his torso and simply bounced off of the cavern floor. The tip and mouth of the protrusion were both open and hollow, and especially wrapped in leather did seem to resemble a horn.
