Ragarin
2318
He was in an unfamiliar bed when the breathing came again. The room too was unknown, some small homestead with immaculately cleaned walls and minimal decoration. He attempted to leap upright, to seize his warhammer and discover where his brothers had-
He ground his teeth as each limb protested immediately and agonizingly. It felt as though his entire body was being chewed on by squigs, a sensation he was not familiar with in such totality.
The shock of pain brought his memory in flashes. The gore-spattered wall. The blonde Northman, Hjolmar. Stevik's lifeless corpse. The kick. Hror's decapitation. Hjolmar. The corpses. Grobi Rik. Hjolmar!
Ragarin screamed his fury. The roar was absorbed limply by the barren walls, his frustration reduced to a petulant wail. Almost immediately, the weight of exhaustion returned in force. He fell to empty sleep, now black and dreamless.
He woke in much the same way several times, occasionally varying in precisely how excruciating his attempts to move were. He recognized well the feeling of impotence that accompanied pulverized limbs. The splints and bandages swathing his inert form signaled that whoever kept him here seemed intent on his recovery. Whoever kept him here also did not deign to show their face, or explain where he was or what had become of his brothers. The unknowing alone made Ragarin want to strangle his host.
On his sixth awakening, they met.
The dwarf was old and wrinkled, with a barren scalp and a long but unornamented beard of ivory hair. Tiny spectacles framed a crooked nose, and his lined mouth hung open slightly as he worked. A slight wheeze passed his lips with each breath. While his bent body exuded frailty, his hands moved with the deft grace of an elven war dancer. They dripped red as he stitched, re-stitched, and freshened bandages.
"He wakes," the old man rasped, not looking up from his work. "What luck. You were blubbering incoherently the last time we met."
Ragarin made no effort to hide his confusion. Was this some strange vengeance? A slight long forgotten only now being acted upon? Ragarin could not place the dwarf anywhere in his memory.
"Don't think too hard, honoured Kol, you have no talent for it."
Ragarin's attempt to throttle the greybeard did not go as intended. His especially violent rise had barely begun before a bloody hand met a pectoral suture and pressed down, sending daggers through his lungs and a wheeze from his throat.
"Aye, thank you for illustrating my point. Now stay still or your wounds will re-open. Did you know one of your shins was actually backwards when you arrived? It's amazing you could move at all, frankly."
"Arrived where?" he winced, his voice like tumbling gravel.
"Ah, the grand hovel that is Drez, in the meager housing of one Daal. We feasted you here not four nights past. Imagine our collective surprise when one of twenty-one Kol hobbles back through our gates with a headless corpse on his back; more so when you almost immediately fell face-first into the mud."
"Where…" he was fighting for consciousness again, and the throbbing pain dimmed his senses. "Where is Hror?"
"Ah, the corpse. I dressed it best I could and left it in the next room over. His armor is being repaired and polished by the locals so you may bury him with dignity, as much as one can muster when the body is missing its head."
Ragarin roared and thrust himself at the healer, his fury numbing the elderly dwarf's frail attempts to keep him at bay. His hands closed around Daal's throat, veins bulging in his thick forearms as he squeezed.
He felt the icy kiss of steel at his throat, but did not abate. "My brothers are dead and my oaths broken, graybeard. Do you think I fear death now?"
"I think…" Daal struggled to speak, and panic was beginning to stain his voice. "You didn't walk here to die, honoured Kol. Let me help you."
Ragarin leaned close, feeling the blade biting shallow into his neck. "Show me and my kin the respect they deserve, or the next time I get my hands on you I will start with something more sensitive."
Ragarin did his best to appear sturdy as he descended the mattress, in truth lacking even the strength to wipe the blood from his neck. For his part, Daal smoothed his beard with a tremulous hand before making a hasty exit.
With time Ragarin's ventures into lucidity became lengthier, though Daal's appearances were uncommon and they did not speak again after that first encounter. Instead, Ragarin passed the time entertaining thoughts of killing Hjolmar and Grobi Rik, imagining increasingly brutal manners in which to dispatch them. Soon, however, the questions of what became questions of how. Hjolmar concerned him little, strength of arms could be matched in many ways, and the Norsca's martial pride should at least make them receptive to challenge. Grobi Rik would pose the greater test; Ragarin would not skulk like a rat in his own city, and he had no doubt the bastard would turn the small folk against him before he reached the first keep. He was only Ragarin Dreng; to his people he was one of The Twenty, and to his acquaintances he was simply unpleasant.
There would be no fanfare upon his return, even less while he carried Hror's corpse on his back.
It was in the midst of these thoughts that Daal returned, bearing his usual mix of fresh bandages and healing oils. Ragarin wondered if the old dwarf would help him if told of this budding treason. He did not know what to make of the graybeard. Violence often revealed one's character, but Daal was unreadable even in the wake of their brief struggle.
"Old man," Ragarin began as his wounds were being dressed. "You look to have at least fifty and two-hundred years on you, yet you speak like an arrogant youth. A rarity, I'd say."
A petulant smile formed on the healer's lips. "Aye, honored Kol, though I fear to speak before your magnificence, for fear of being justly punished once more."
Ragarin's irritation bubbled anew. "Speak plainly then, I won't strike you unless you insult our honor. And I am Ragarin Dreng, call me as such, your false courtesy is starting to annoy me."
"Fair enough, Ragarin Dreng, though I did not mean to question the honor of you or your brothers. That said, if you do not admit that your attack was… ill-advised, I fear you may be joining your master in the ground rather quickly."
"It was not our choice," Ragarin grumbled. "We were sent to die. My living is only a small part of the revenge I'll take for that."
Daal made a face that was hard to read. Reminiscence, perhaps? Ragarin could not tell.
"Revenge," he said, quietly. "Ragarin Dreng, the bones of your left foot are largely powder. Your knees are weak and will buckle easily. The tendons in your right forearm are mostly severed and three of your fingers on that same hand will never flex again."
Ragarin raised the limb in question as the old dwarf spoke, confirming his assertions with painful effort.
"If you were meant to die, take life as your revenge, as you have said. Expect not any greater vengeance, else you'll quickly find even that solace undone."
Ragarin's curiosity turned to disgust. "Whatever you ran from, you old bastard, you did it like an Elf. We are the children of the stone, and we do not bend to adversity."
"No," Daal answered, apparently unoffended. "You snap, and shatter, and die, like your twenty 'unstoppable' brothers. Better to live, and wait for the opportunity."
"If I wait," Ragarin responded instantly, unconvinced, "I will go as white as you, and Grobi will eat himself into his grave faster than such miracles will appear. No, I will forge my own recompense."
"How, then?" asked the elderly dwarf, giving voice to Ragarin's own thoughts. "You are no Hror, no heroic champion of the people. Who will support Ragarin Dreng, but one of the many Kol?"
Something about those words gave spark to an idea. Small embers of potential quickly flared into a roaring inferno, possibility upon possibility becoming desirable reality in his mind.
No, he thought. No, that is blasphemous. All I do is to preserve our laws, our honor. My course must be just. My very soul is false if I build it upon betrayal and deception.
Yet still, the thought persisted. He held it close for many nights, his only real companion in this strange, empty house. But with each day he entertained the idea, there would come a night of self-loathing, a chastisement of the abomination forming in his mind. Yet where his dreams had once been an empty void, they now brought forth visions of his failure, of Grobi Rik's abject victory. He dreamt the destruction of every ideal his master had fought for.
The answer came with his recovery. It had taken weeks of healing, and weeks more of practice before he could stand again. He could feel his new fragility, the pain in his limbs and the limpness of his gestures, but movement was his once more.
As Daal watched on, he rose from the bed that was his prison for the final time. It was only then that he really seemed to process the old dwarf. He looked upon Daal's limbs, thin and wasted, at the platinum hair running thin from a wrinkled scalp. He had a crooked back and failing eyes, and some nights Ragarin could hear coughing fits that lasted for hours on end.
This dwarf is weak. He is the frail wisp none of my people should live to become. If I forestall my vengeance, will I wither into the same husk, waiting for an opportunity that will never come?
The answer was as obvious as it was inevitable.
"Daal, show me to my master. Bring me to Hror."
Hjolmar
2318
This champion lets himself waste away in the company of useless books. The voice was the searing winds of the fall, and the chorus of angry screams from below. The chains rattled, and his skin hissed and bubbled as they burned him. It was a voice not of words, but of meaning distilled.
Has so little pain addled your mind? The voice was mocking now, the mosaic of sound running thick with bile. You know what your master is owed.
…
Hjolmar's dreams of Hel were interrupted by a steady knocking sound. He was more than grateful. The elation turned to annoyance, however, as the knocking persisted, reverberating through the wooden door of his sanctum. The noise was accompanied in short order by a hideous throbbing from his crown.
"Quiet…" a muted, rasping voice said. "Quiet… quiet!" The voice's attempt at a scream only made it more pitiful, a shrill wail in the dark. He rolled from his bed of glass and began a slow crawl to the door; his hands quickly running warm and wet as they split upon the myriad shards. Only when he slipped on his own blood, landing with a painful crunch on the detritus beneath him, did he realize the voice had been his own.
The silence returned. It was almost peaceful, then. Even the pain in his brow could not undo his newfound relaxedness.
What little tranquility he could grasp was shattered along with the door, which exploded into splinters and admitted the deep blue of evening light, something Hjolmar had not seen in what felt like an age. Panic filled him as he twisted away from the emanation, burying his face in thin arms to flee the moon's gaze.
"Hjolmar?" The voice was familiar, but he could not put it to a face, not anymore. His memories had become twisted abominations, caressing hands became claws and joy bubbled into charcoal fury.
"Hjolmar!" this one was different, shriller and more unhinged. He felt hands on his back and he scrambled away from their grasp, grabbing a jagged shard from the floor and spinning to meet his attackers.
His arm was halted as both wrists were caught by his assailant. The man was impossibly strong, and it felt as though his hands would shatter Hjolmar's own if pressed any tighter.
He could not see the man's face, haloed by the silver moon. "Hjolmar!" the man said again, in a voice waxing to the familiar. Hjolmar raged against his bonds, kicking feebly against the man's iron limbs and butting his spiked crown at the stranger's face. The bite of the rusted tines made his attacker recoil.
The vice about his wrist loosened fractionally, and Hjolmar tore his right hand free. His glass weapon dug deep into the palm with the effort. He tackled the man, still off balance, and sent them both crashing to the disarray below. The man tried to grab him again, but by now both their limbs ran slick with blood and they slid off each other with ease. Hjolmar raised his knife and hammered at the man's hasty defense, mashing his muscular arms with manic repetition.
When the warding limbs finally parted, Hjolmar stared down into a hideously familiar face. His plain but uneven features, marred now by three bloody scars, stared out from beneath a mop of tangled, brown hair. His eyes were an icy blue, and when they met Hjolmar's the creeping memories solidified into certainty.
"Joric..?" the pathetic voice said again. The throbbing in his skull began anew, quicker and more intense than before.
Kill him, the pain said, in the voice of his dreams, now weaved of agony over wind.Kill him. Maim him. Burn him. He makes you weak. He makes you unworthy. Spill his blood. Take his skull.
No, he thought, remembering who he was, feeling the veil in his mind peel away like smoke before a wash of wind. Urges of murder and defiance wrestled in his mind, coming to blows he could feel like a sword through the gut.
Kill him. Kiss him. Spill his guts. Smash his skull. Rip him apart. Hug him. Hate him. Fuck him. Wet the earth with his gore and share your mead with his corpse.
"No!" he screamed in his pathetic, quiet voice. He threw the knife against the wall, watching it shatter into glittering nothingness.
You spurn your blessing. Motivation is not punishment.
The agony in his head began to abate with whatever madness had possessed him, reason fighting desperately to take its place.
Keep your pathetic weakness, then.
And with that, things went still. He looked about, at the filth smeared across the room and himself, at the piles of notes and books wet with bodily fluids, at the smashed mirror and furniture, and at the runes he had carved upon the walls. He looked down at Joric, now palming the gashes across his face, and at Valka, who had gone wide-eyed at the unfolding spectacle.
All at once, the stink of blood and shit filled his nostrils, hunger ripped at his stomach and lethargy sized his limbs. Unconsciousness swallowed him, and the fall waited behind sleep's midnight curtain.
…
The dreams did not change. Still they came with chains of scorched black, volcanic winds, and the screams of the dying. When he woke, however, change was beyond evident. He was on his bed, and for what felt like the first time the soft straw felt pleasant beneath his aching limbs. He could feel the pollution caking his body and shift, now disgusted rather than oblivious. The crown still throbbed, but compared to the active pounding that had come before its ache felt nearly as nothing.
Joric stood at his bedside, while Valka and one of the Ghosts moved in and out of the hut with steaming buckets of water, filling a tub which had been hastily dragged into the nearby room. His face was bandaged over fresh lacerations, but even so the sight of him returned small life to Hjolmar's wasted limbs.
"He lives," Joric began, turning his head so the others could hear. "I know you didn't appreciate my calling you highness, but I hadn't expected you to attack me over it." His mouth was pulled into his usual petulant grin. It was an expression Hjolmar couldn't help but match.
"Well, apparently I tried coating myself in shit first, to appear less regal. Then I thought you would surely make japes about my being the 'King of Shit' or some such, and the plan soured." They laughed again, and Hjolmar felt joy's embrace for the first time in what felt like decades. "Sorry about the face," he added after their giggling subsided.
Joric waved a dismissive hand "Ah, worry not. Not as though my face was much to look at before anyhow. Maybe now I'll seem battle-worn enough for the ladies to fawn over."
Hjolmar pushed himself upright, struggling to keep balance. His head was still swimming from starvation. "Who is that?" he asked, nodding to Vidar.
Joric gave the warrior a sidelong glance. "Nothing special, but he seems reliable enough."
"How long have I been here?" he asked. It was the first of several questions pertaining to the warband's number, their reaction to Kel's death, and Hjolmar's condition and popularity.
"Well, if I've been gone for two weeks, I don't blame them for growing restless. It was hardly promises of rest and relaxation that had them cheering my name. Still, cleaned and back in furs and armor, I'm sure they'll barely-"
"They're rallying behind Sven," Valka announced wearily from across the room.
Hjolmar felt something in his face twitch. "Apologies, I think I misheard."
Valka let her bucket fall noisily before marching over to join them, leaving Vidar to nearly trip over the discarded vessel. "He told everyone you're not fit to lead anymore, that he'd do better. I think about half listened to him."
Hjolmar's face tightened into a rictus of incredulity. He was vaguely aware of Joric wilting under his gaze. They watched me kill a daemon with my bare hands. His hands were working, a tremor running through them as he struggled to appear stoic. I defeated a feared warrior in combat one-armed. I freed them from the yolk of Kel. I transformed them from a long ship full of corpses into a warband.
He could just barely hear his own breathing over the pounding in his ears. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to kill everyone. Joric was saying something, but Hjolmar wasn't listening. His mind flooded with all manner of protracted murder, be it on Sven alone or those who had chosen to follow him. Hjolmar had been betrayed, abandoned by his flock the moment he had turned his gaze from them.
"Hjolmar?" Joric asked again, this time cutting through the fugue of his anger. He noticed he was now standing and that his skin had grown slimy, fresh sweat mingling with the filth that already sheathed him. For a moment he feared this might signal continued, uncontrolled lapses into the madness that had possessed him prior, but as his fury receded beneath his skin, he wondered if it was instead a sign. The voice in his head had demanded blood and skulls, perhaps those of his betrayers would fill that quota. He would certainly take no shortage of pleasure in acquiring such a tribute.
Only now did he notice the concern written across the faces of both Valka and Joric, almost comical in their similarity. He forced a smile, allowing his body to relax and ease the worry of his closest brethren.
"I have a plan for Sven," he lied, returning to his seat. He regarded his grotesque shift, sneering exaggeratedly at his own condition. He stole a quick glance back up at his companions to ensure their worry had eased. "I need time to make certain the details. Return to me in the morning, when I won't look and smell like a pig drowned in offal."
They obeyed without comment, for which Hjolmar was grateful. He turned to the steaming tub they had prepared, eager to begin the process of personal restoration. Robbed of the fervor that had gripped him moments before, his first attempt to stand saw him tumble back onto the floor, thankfully cleared of debris while he had been unconscious. He forced himself to his feet almost immediately, though the attempt ended as the first had. He repeated this pattern until he reached the basin, knowing that he would need to stand by the time he dealt with the Ghosts, be it with speech or sword. He peeled away the soiled cloth, struggling where it had dried tight onto his skin, and threw the tatters into a heap before clumsily lowering himself into the tub.
The blood and filth spread from him like a cloud as he slid into the heated water. He held his hands beneath the surface, and watched as the gashes in his palms slowly ran dry of their crimson excretions. Next was his hair, clumped and painfully tangled about the crown's rusted spikes. He continued methodically, moving from one area to the next, forcing order into his routine once more.
When he was satisfied, the water had gone nearly opaque, a vile brown soup he was more than happy to dump through the floor grate. When he had dried, stitched, and bandaged, he stood again. Another stumble returned him to the floor, but no sooner was he back on his feet. Through the night he continued, standing just a little longer each time.
Joric
2318
Joric fell to the floor, Hjolmar suddenly a conduit of strength that had been in absence moments before. Glass crunched beneath him as he landed, shards embedding themselves into flesh and armor. Joric fought the urge to reach for his dagger, and instead threw up his arms in meager defense, thoughts scrambling for a way to incapacitate his friend without snapping his frail body in twain.
The crazed Hjolmar hammered him with bony fists and headbutts made savage by the ring of metal clamped to his skull. Iron knives tore through Joric's exposed skin, the shredded flesh hissing with a pain Joric had never before experienced. He felt fire bleed into his veins, now running hot with corruption. Worse still, each strike seemed to stoke his fury, and angry frustration was rapidly overtaking restraint. When a lucky hit pushed his arms away and dug three bloody ravines through his face, it was all he could do to keep himself from beating Hjolmar into a sticky pulp.
Hjolmar hesitated suddenly. Joric's fury was quickly exceeded by fear as he saw Valka approach the maddened warlord from behind, axe ready to strike if it meant sparing Joric. He signaled for her to stop with a raised hand, half-expecting Hjolmar to resume his madman's assault. Instead, he simply stared, eyes wide as if seeing Joric for the first time.
"Joric..?" His voice was so thin, Joric was unsure he had spoken at all. Eyes rolled backwards into his abused skull, and Hjolmar's body crumpled to the floor, crown striking the stone with a loud clang.
For a time, Joric and Valka kept their silence, both staring wide-eyed at the frail waif their friend had become. It seemed like hours before Valka spoke.
"He is too weak," she said matter-of-factly, as if describing the sky as blue.
"Not now," Joric said, attempting to inject his voice with what little authority he could muster. Lingering pain turned the words into a snarl.
Our friend is lying near-dead on the floor, and my damned indecision is what let this happen. Now is not the time for arguing his fitness to lead.
"Joric, we don't have time to heal-"
"I said not now!" He roared, clumsily forcing himself to unsteady feet. Blood matted his face, and that which had run into his mouth spattered Valka's jerkin as he spoke.
Valka's eyes narrowed, her grimace not so much as twitching. Joric wondered if this was what her enemies saw moments before their deaths. Rage flared inside him, as if it were bleeding from his wounds. Relief came just as easily as she broke their stare and quit the stony hovel, shouting for Vidar. Joric breathed a sigh of relief, only then realizing his knuckles were white with tension.
…
When he had left the hut, face bandaged and Hjolmar's condition addressed, Valka spoke again.
"He is too weak. He cannot lead us."
Her flippancy irritated him, more so that she hadn't dismissed Vidar before beginning this conversation. "You speak as if he isn't our friend. You speak as if he didn't get us this far. You saw, he recovers already. We just need to-"
"`He tries to lead like this, he'll die. I won't see him torn apart by Sven and his dogs. I also won't see him killed on the field of battle, his twig limbs snapped by somebody's war hammer."
Joric laughed at that, a humorless, loud thing that sounded mad even to his own ears. "Was that hypocrisy, Valka? You encouraged this in the first place. You think Hjol cares about life for its own sake? Do you think any of us do? If you respect him at all, you'll honor his word until we rule the world or he dies trying. That drive is what lead us here. By the Four, it's why he killed a hellhound with his bare hands."
It was Valka's turn to laugh. The woman's smile was a rarity Joric had seldom witnessed, and it had never been anything but cruel and ugly. The scars and contours of her face were black in the dimly-lit streets, illuminated only by the few sconces their fellows had bothered to light. "You've not changed since the day we met, Joric. So this time I'll tell you instead of asking. Tomorrow, I'll gather those I've kept loyal. Tomorrow night, I'll kill Sven and everyone who tries to stop me."
With that, she turned and stalked off, Vidar close behind. Joric felt like a babe struck for the first time, bordering on panic and stilted by inaction. This struggle was not his intent. Hjolmar's recovery was to unite them again, not incite further fractures.
Joric did not sleep that night. What little relief he had gained in helping Hjolmar withered before Valka's proclamation. He was more than aware it was not his own strength that kept the Ghosts in line.
When he had abandoned all hope of proper rest, he walked, as was his way. The salty wind of the ocean funneled into the cave city, but the myriad scents of these churning waves were a pale imitation of those he had grown up with. In truth, he hated Urbaz more than he hated its people. Everything was too small, and the dwarves' craftsmanship was colder than his icy birthplace. Furs and skins and wood held a glimmer of the life that once filled them, and possessed a sort of warmth few would admit, but all had enjoyed. Here though, these stone houses had quickly shown their deadness. There was no passion or risk in their building. There was no life to any of it.
The scenery was not improved by the corpses of its old masters, strung up and hacked apart and piled in heaps of dead flesh. The city had become a shrine to death. He wondered at the depth of pleasure Olavi took from arranging it so.
It seemed no time at all before the sun began to cast its light on the back wall of the cavern, setting the cold grey to vibrant yellows and angry purples. It struck him as grimly amusing that he'd craved sleep while in charge, but now free of that burden it refused to manifest.
He returned to Hjolmar's dwelling, knowing he would not see Valka there as Hjolmar had requested. He was surprised to find it nearly pristine, his fouled shift now feeding a warming fire in the hearth. Hjolmar himself stood in loose furs, pouring over the notes now neatly stacked and remarkably thinned from the volume they had possessed half a day prior.
He straightened when he noticed Joric, assuming the easy, pompous posture he normally wore. Despite his tidied appearance, both hands were wrapped in bloodied rags that left only his fingertips exposed. His eyes had not lost the fatigue that had plagued them on his waking; evidently Joric was not the only one to experience a sleepless night.
"Joric," he said warmly, some strength present in his voice again. If he was surprised at Valka's absence, he showed no sign. "Help me into my armor. We have work to do."