Ulfrag Thokkson
Hestavíg
Loose drink and the smell of charred seal oil caked the air. A thick and drunken crowd had formed around the ring of assembled birch trunks. In the center of this pen thrashed three equine bodies, two of them stallions pummeling each other with bladelike hooves. Beside them, a mare in heat squirmed. The rope barding held her taut to the towering stone at the northern edge of the pen. The Hestavig at its best, a good time had by all. Cheers rang out with each blow as the specimens fought in bloodlust for the mare. It is the fate of nature and the stars that the strong should survive and carry on the path of the herd.
This particular celebration was special. The son of Thokk--the gothi, the leader and savior of her people--was turning one score years. Thokk stood over the ceremony in fine furs and silver talismans as blood, hair, and soil erupted in the pen beneath. Thokk was pitted with the scars and pocks of many hard winters and hard decisions. She had led her people to this place after generations of exile escaping the wilds and ways of men. This land had become their home. It was a place feared by all who neared its essence. Yet she had found a way to its heart and the key to her people’s safety amongst the bones of giants.
Were it not for the cheers and shrieking roars cutting the eve’s air, theirs was a quiet place. Dipping valleys of black volcanic rock shrouded in thick birch and maples. Beneath her canopy lay the secrets of old. Giant mounds of stone covered much of the forest floor, collecting moss and lichen and and the things of old life. It was a graveyard. The petrified remains of the Time Before, where Primordials clashed and their fallen became the earth. The tales of southern tribes said it was a haunted place. They were right.
Her son sifted through the onlooking crowd, greetings and well wishes of his tribesmen thrust upon him from every angle. Though many cared for him, Ulfrag was sure they were more pleased by the thrill of show and feast. The amber fire of twilight danced in the drunken gaze of their eyes. He joined the front row of spectators as hooves clashed skulls again and again. The noise was excruciating. The scene sickened him, but how can traditions be broken? This is nature. Without this pen, the mangled horse would have met the same fate.
The once beautiful pony, now caked in black dirt and gore, ceased its struggle. The bejeweled woman stepped into the pen and the crowd fell silent. The horns of black ale briefly parting from their lips as they watched abatedly. Even the stallion seemed to be frozen by her presence before being hurried away by stable boys with its mare in tow. Thokk raised her hand, a crude ax of birchwood and black stone hanging at her side.
“Fate cannot be interrupted by man,” her voice boomed. “Let this be the course of the stars. And may its children obey and avail.”
With a clean strike she plunged the ax into the maimed horse’s neck. The crowd erupted in revelry. Cheers once more. The once still drinks turned now into a frothy shrapnel. Sprigs of mistletoe were thrown at the feet of Thokk as tears began to streak their soot-covered cheeks. Soon the feast of horse would begin, the first fresh meat in months. Amidst the clamor a small, black fowl appeared. It swooped onto Thokk’s outstretched arm and proffered forth a small flower. The grizzled woman looked like blood no longer lived in her veins. Her eyes held only terror.
The horizon’s last breath of sun dipped across the sky. Ulfrag had seen the exchange and leapt into the pen to comfort his mother. A subtle surge in revelry but few noticed his addition. They instead were occupied with the horse being drawn up and affixed by its hind legs to the giant stone, the slow drip of its lifeforce falling below into a ceremonial bowl. She stared blankly to the sky as he rushed to her side.
“What news is this creature!? Why does it cause you such pain?” Ulfrag asked frantically. His mother continued to gaze blankly at the sapphire haze of early night.
“They know.” She muttered under her breath. Without further word she tore a fistful of hair from the slain horse’s palmetto mane. She held it under the crude ax still lodged in its victim’s throat. Black liquid trickled from its hilt. The stream collected on the coarse blond hair in her grasp.
“Come mother, let us talk of this alone while the others fill their gut.” Ulfrag whispered pleadingly. “They have had nothing but deer moss for months. Their teeth are nearly rotten. Let their minds be at peace, such a place I wish you could take mine.”
She continued her blank gaze. She thrusted the dripping horse hair at the winged creature. It took the offering and flew south toward the first glistening star of the night. She turned to Ulfrag. Her eyes were not her own. “I hope the stars wish them peace.”
She struck Ulfrag in the face, his nose clicking to the side with a fiery torrent of pain. “Mother, what in the Fates!?” She struck out again. This time he just managed to dodge her assault, swapping places with her in the parry. He was backed against the giant monolith. The subtle tapping drips of the slain echoed behind him.
“Let me end this!” She screeched into the dusk, her grey hair tossing about her face like a sordid beast. The members of the tribe stood in awe at the scene. Terror and confusion married amongst them. A club was thrown into the pit at the gothi’s feet. “Let Fate.” She hissed at the supplier in return. Another club found its way to Ulfrag. Two shields dashed in amongst the mistletoe and claret of horses. Ulfrag prepared himself in the fashion of his mother. He wanted to tell her to stop this, he wanted to find what had possessed her mind; but the words would not come, for he felt the same, unquestionable pull to blood.
The woman, venerable in years, crashed into his shield like a berserker of Sinn Dhein. Ulfrag felt the laminar wood begin to buckle under her blow. Once. Twice. Three times she struck home with the wooden cudgel. It caved in the thin pine that held him from her inhuman tide of strength. The next blow sent straight into his arm. Ulfrag looked twice to see that it had not been severed off yet it felt so. Dangling loosely at an ominous angle, he had lost his feeling and use of it completely. Feeling except for pain; all encompassing, blinding, it throbbed into his ears as the sound of the world went black.
White light dashed across his face. The side of his cheek roared into a pain more fierce than his mangled arm. His head spun rear. Liquid metals filled his mouth. In his gasp for breath he felt the sputter of small rocks fall from his jaw where teeth had once been. The night had come or else the world had gone dark. When Ulfrag managed his eyes open his vision was singular: the crude ax in the throat of the horse. It was all encompassing, all he could see, it roared to him without sound.
Ulfrag swung round on his foe. The club crunching through the gristle of Thokk’s right knee. He did not hear what cry she made, he only felt her, felt it. His left arm flailed at his side as he took blows to her shield as was done to him. The fresh scent of pine cut through the iron of his nose as splinters were wrought for yards. She was crumbling before him. She would die.
Yet, she did not. A thrust of her warclub found his exposed gut. His lungs collapsed under the weight of his paralyzed diaphragm. Air could not be found. He fell to his back, sputtering in the blood of his face. He wished she would put him out of his misery. Hang him to this stone and feed his people. And this she intended. Thokk, broken herself, dragged what bones she had left above her helpless prey. She sat astride him, the gift of her womb. A stone, a pumiced fossil of giants before time, was held aloft to deliver its blow. Ulfrag grabbed helplessly at the sky to impede its fall.
He felt it strike his hand. Slide into his palm. He felt the blood running down his arm. He could feel it yet there was no pain. It was all encompassing. He opened his eyes and saw the ax. It was in his hand. The blood of the horse still tapping in the cadence of his heart and the throb of the world around him. He looked up at his mother and plunged it into her chest. Silence.
Her gaze softened. Light slowly warmed her eyes. The grey soul-spun wisps of the aurora above kissed the fresh night sky. Ulfrag watched onward as her body relaxed above him and gently turned to stone. The ax was no longer all encompassing. Finally he could see the night filled with stars.
