SNAFU: Hunters

Think of something, rune-witch, think of something!

Rune-witch.

She spun. There, undisturbed amid the combat and carnage, was her grey cloak, laid out on the ground with the wolf-pelt spread upon it. No one had trampled or trodden upon it. The rune-marked bones seemed faintly to flicker with their own inner light. The air above and around them was clear. Even as she watched, tendrils of eddying mist wafted near to the bones then curled away.

“Gather!” Valhild bellowed, standing over Anbjorn – whether he was dead or merely unconscious, Hreyth couldn’t say. “Gather, fall back, and shields!”

Those who could, did. Egil all but carried Atli, who had bled to a whey-water pallor from his severed arm. Thrunn came limping, fending off two warriors, many small wounds making him resemble a hound-harried boar near the end of the hunt.

For Osig and Inglar, there was no question; they had gone to the mead-benches of Odin’s golden hall. Gone, but with glory, and far from alone. If Ulfvir had led twenty, he’d lost more than half. But he, and his remaining men, looked largely unhurt, and still outnumbered the paltry defense of Valhild, Egil, and Thrunn’s three-shield wall.

Hreyth could have picked up Anbjorn’s shield and joined them, for what little good it might have done. Instead, she ran for her cloak through the thickening mist. It swirled about her legs, made her mail-coat glisten silver, and cooled – chilled! – her flesh.

“I’ll take your heads back to Gunnleif in a bag,” snarled Ulfvir. “We’ll set them in a row and piss on them in turn.”

“You’ll have to come get them,” Valhild replied.

“With pleasure,” he said. Yet he and his men hung back, hesitant to again throw themselves against the formidable strength of Valhild’s and Egil’s swords.

“Hreyth?” Egil spoke with low urgency.

“I’m here.”

For a terrible moment, she felt the fog congeal dense and heavy against her skin, weighing on her limbs like damp wool, and she thought she was too late. But another step brought her into the clearness. She bent and seized the edges of the wolf-pelt, scooping its contents into a bundle as best she could with one hand.

“What’s happened to the sun?” someone asked, one of Gunnleif’s men, anxious.

“Never mind the sun,” Ulfvir told him. “Kill them, or I’ll bring your heads back to Gunnleif!” He raised his sword, and howled. “Kill them!”

As they howled in return, emboldening their spirits to renew battle, Hreyth ran back to the close cluster of her companions. She let go an edge of the wolf-pelt, casting the rune-marked bones in an arc at their feet and hoping it would be enough.

Then Egil swept her behind him, and their small shield-wall braced for the overwhelming charge.

* * *

The overwhelming charge did not come. It ended in a dark whorl of mist, a chill breeze, a shiver, and a sudden hush.

Hreyth, who had closed her eyes in wincing anticipation, opened them. Valhild cautiously lowered her shield. The others did likewise.

At their feet lay the rune-marked bones. Around them, already, the mist was lifting, dispersing, giving way again to mild spring sun and clear blue sky.

In front of them, mere paces from their line, several tall grey shapes jutted from the earth at canted, slanted angles. By some, shields painted half yellow and half black had fallen. By some, swords and spears.

Crumpled at the base of the nearest was a dire-hound’s shaggy pelt, knotted at the forepaws.

No one spoke. Their throats worked as they swallowed, their mouths faltered at forming words, but no one spoke.

The dead, those slain in the battle, were as they had been. Unaffected. So too were the horses, nosing in the grass. Atli barely clung to life, and Anbjorn was little better.

Of Ulfvir, and his men…

Only stones left in their place.

Valhild found her voice first, looking at Hreyth. “Your runes protected us?”

“I hoped they might.”

A nod, and the firm squeeze of Valhild’s big hand on Hreyth’s mail-clad shoulder, conveyed her thanks. Then she stepped toward the group of stones, though made no move yet to touch.

“Wh-what happened to them?” stammered Thrunn.

“The stanvaettir stole their breath,” Egil said.

“Not just stanvaettir,” Hreyth said. “Another power.”

“And it did this?” Valhild indicated the valley. “All this?”

“With each theft, growing stronger. Growing hungrier, more ravenous.”

“How do we kill it?”

“Kill it?” Thrunn gaped. “How?”

“That’s what I’m asking,” she told him. “Can it be killed?”

“I don’t know,” Hreyth said. “Perhaps.”

“If not?”

“If not,” said Egil, “this valley won’t contain it long.”

Hreyth thought of farm-steads and villages… of Jorfyn’s war-camp and Gunnleif’s forces at the town – two armies, and more men arriving every day in answer to the summons of their earls.

“It emerged from those fissures in the rock, and that broken boulder’s cleft,” she said. “There must be something under us, underneath the ground. A cavern, pit, or tunnel.”

“A lair,” said Valhild with a grim smile.