The Great Ones Aren't Here
Setting:
River Moss
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This is a particularly rock portion of the River Moss. Large boulders, smoothed by the gentle caress of the river, and the silent tears of
the rain, rise up from the ground. The shore line isn't. It stands at a cliff that rises a couple meters up, over which cast large white
oaks, shading the river from most direct sunlight.
The trees move gently in the breeze.
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Characters:
Kolbjorn, and his Vikings
Villagers, in a quiet village on the River Moss
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<----> The Great Ones Aren't Here<---->
==
The night falls, still and silent, over a tiny settlement, peppered with the warm glow of dying embers scattered through the square. The remnants of the day's festival are evident in every corner of the place: banners strung from poles, squashed remains of food, discarded bottles, and the occasional drunkard, still collapsed where he fell. The only movement comes from the periphery of the tiny town, as the night's guards change shifts. The encounter is brief and sleepy, and few words are exchanged; the young mouse has just assumed his position, so the fatigue of seasons of stagnation have yet to take their toll on the tiny guard as he relieves the other of his duty. He takes his position with a grin, looking out over the River Moss by the light of his single torch, straightening his helmet as it threatens to fall over his eyes.
Kolbjorn is a shadow. When he was young, he realized early on the importance of knowing now to be afraid of the dark, but to inhabit it. The catch-all term for the monsters in the dark that preyed on his tribe became his title. He must be one of the dimmamorthi, shadow killer, and be the thing others feared about the dark. He slinks along, wearing his armor tight and thick clothing to muffle his sounds. It is hotter here, uncomfortably so, but it is ignored. He creeps with his crew, towards the mouse guard ahead of him, staying to the thick vegetation near the river bank.
The guard is oblivious, despite his enthusiasm. Green and untrained, the peaceful village has not had to contend with the hardships of war, nor have they tasted the spoils of conquest for themselves. They do not know fear, they do not know the struggle to survive, and are complacent in their peace. Holding his torch aloft, the mouse - Mason - sets off on his rounds, turning away from the unseen danger to march from one post to another. It does not take more than ten minutes to traverse the entirety of the settlement's border, and he breaks the monotony of silence with a jaunty whistle. There is another on duty; a heavy-set squirrel stationed in the back, and as he sees the movement of Mason's torch, he takes the initiative to kick off towards the mouse's vacated post, patrolling the North side of the town as his fellow guard rounds the South. This is their pattern, a lazy routine which has been effective only for the previous lack of any real threat.
Kolbjorn waits. He waits as the portly squirrel heads towards Mason's previous post, and the other raider he has stationed nearby waits until Mason's back is turned. Until they both are at their most vulnerable. The simple, small moment when nobody's looking. And then, as one, they strike. The other raider slithers up out of the shadows, falling on the squirrel from behind, wrapping a paw around his throat to cut off a scream, and aiming a knife to gouge between his ribs and strike directly at his heart. Kolbjorn goes for the same. All Mason has time to see is a darting shadow out of the corner of his eye before a beast twice his size envelopes him, and introduces him to cold steel.
It all happens in an instant or it seems to, at least. The squirrel has time only to gasp in shock before he falls, a sickening gurgle bubbles, bloody, from his torn and ruined throat. Mason turns at the suggestion of movement, and briefly illuminates the hulking figure before he is overtaken with a strangled cry of overwhelming fear, and unbearable pain. The young mouse collapses, crushed, crumpled, and bloody to the dirt. His torch falls to the ground. It may not have been much, but the tiny cry is enough to rouse one of the drunkards taking their rest under the stars - and he screams bloody murder. The sleepy village comes to life in delayed bursts, and is at once a chorus of frightened cries, several beasts trying to flee into the surrounding woods.
The screaming drunk is already being overtaken as Kolbjorn rushes forward and hurls a throwing axe into his head. As beasts are roused they are met by a surge of nearly a hundred armored warriors, near fifty on each side, who have surrounded the little village. One or two slip through; there are standing orders to let at least some spread a tale of terror. The advance is methodic and brutal, even as they hack through the defenseless and the aged. Some, out of random chance or because they are pleasing to the eye, are smashed to the ground by large shields. Kolbjorn unsheathes his sword as he strides directly to the center of the village even as it erupts in chaos around him, daring anyone to approach him. This, all of this, is but a test, and he is here to see what Mossflower can do against the wrath of the northmen.
But there is nothing that can be. The woodlanders are swept into the wanton carnage, and desperate pleas fall on hardened hearts and uncaring ears. Shaking, anguished sobs come from one mousemaid as she drags the ruined remains of Mason to her chest, bloodying her apron. Horrified and frantic shouts mingle in with the confusion, even as a lucky few manage to scurry their way to freedom. In the chaos, Kolbjorn is given as wide a berth as the fleeing beasts can manage - though they are cut down, nonetheless. He is treated as any other monster would be - with terror and desperate avoidance, until the wails from the side of the dead mouse-guard turn to something twisted and broken. The mousemaid - who would otherwise be settling into her later seasons with comfortable stagnation and the soft-bodied plumpness that is induces - yanks the sword free from her son's belt and charges the massive marten. She stands no chance: her size does not come close to comparable, and a life of housework and motherhood does not a warrior make - yet she is a helpless in the throes of her madness and grief as she was to save her son. "MY BABY!" Is all she is capable of howling as she swings the sword at Kolbjorn with unpracticed and clumsy ferocity.
Kolbjorn, had he grown up on these shores, might think differently of what he did for a living. Had he not watched his siblings die one by one to cold and enemy raiders, or been taught since the day he was born that nothing would come to him save what he took with the sword, he may have felt a twinge of remorse. But he was taught that his soul was carved from ice by the angry wind of the Storm Father, and he has faced too much loss and carnage for one weeping mother to move him. He watches one of his soldiers hack down a brave but reckless defender, and shakes his head. This land is soft. No wonder they fell so easily. He turns back to the mouse as she raises her son's sword, and that is what moves him. To die with a sword in your paw is a high honor. He sidesteps the clumsy swing to deflect it away with his shield and huffs, remembering that if they wanted to keep their lives, they would learn how. As the sword goes to one side, he almost lazily steps into her reach and drives his blade home, into her chest. "Tha fara tils hans," he grunts.
The light leaves her eyes slowly, but she does not cry out in pain. "You -" She wheezes, the darkness overtaking her as she reaches a paw, fingers curling uselessly against his armor. Her body, soft and limp, slides from his sword to a heap on the ground. Her friends and neighbors think little of trampling her in their desperation to escape - come morning, the brave mother would be naught but a pulp, distinguishable only by her ruined apron, still soaked in her son's blood. The remaining villagers do put up some effort, be it with their rakes, or planks of wood, or actual weapons - but still, they are crushed beneath the onslaught. Death does not come one by one, more like the efficient slaughtering of livestock - no effort can account for their inexperience, the surprise of the attack, or the ruthlessness of those enacting it. There is nothing to be done against the organized brutality of the raid, and none among them who stand any sort of chance. A father clutching an infant, a guard clutching a sword, an elder clutching the ax as it protrudes from his battered chest - they all run, they all scream, and they all fall.
Kolbjorn watches the mouse as she falls, standing still as her paw slips on his chain mail. When she dies, he wipes his blade on the mouse's apron and shrugs. He's heard this screaming before. It holds no terror for him. There are no gods to judge him here, and these woodlanders certainly seem to have none. "I almost miss the ones back home!" he bellows into the maelstrom of death. "At least they knew!" He parries a spear thrust and steps forward, cutting the squirrel's throat open with barely a flick of his wrist before he walks on. "At least they did not simper and die like a tree to the fire! Our souls are carved from ice! What are yours made of?!" He walks on, killing, knocking over a torch so it sets a hut ablaze. Kol bangs his sword on his shield, growing frustrated now. The bloodlust is high, but there are only so many he can kill without it being a wasted effort. "Where are your great ones?! Where are the strong-armed and steel-hearted to drive us back into the sea?!" He notices a door still unopened and hacks at it in a rage, battering it down with an axe he claims from a fallen villager. He roars at the door, as if it can calm him, and when it is splinters, he kicks the remainder down, peering inside.
The great ones aren't here - and the ruined, wretched souls who managed to flee the carnage, who throw themselves wildly through the forest, blinded by tears, certainly hope to find them. As the door caves beneath his foot, it arouses a fresh set of screams. A young otter, just bridging his fifth season, wrenches free of his mother's arms to charge the intruder, and she scrambles after the child in an attempt to throw her own body between him and the crazed warrior, as he tears into their home. The child ducks around the jill and rushes the marten with a dull knife. It is a kitchen utensil, not a weapon, but still the dibbun throws himself at the Viking with a tiny scream of rage. "Leave us!" His war cry is nothing more than the misplaced bravery of a child who has never known true fear. In the village, fires are spreading - the smoke within burning huts choking any still hiding within, ushering out fresh throngs of woodlanders into the slaughter that awaits their exodus.
Kolbjorn is an enraged warrior like the tales of old tell. A little otter cub is nothing to him. It shows in the way he just stands there, watching, waiting for the knife to cut at his chain mail. And then he rolls his eyes. "Child," he murmurs, and brings the haft of the axe down to bop him in the temple and lay him out senseless. It's a simple act, no more to the muscular marten than swatting a fly. Not that he hasn't killed children, but some must be alive to be thralls, and some, future warriors for a great jarl. Really the boy is lucky Kol is no berserker, who would have literally torn out his throat with his teeth. "This place is done," he decides. "But I am not." He glances up at the jill next, his dark fur stained with blood and his eyes still reflecting the madness and growing fires outside. He pauses a moment to look her over, and see what she does with her destiny.
The dibbun hits the ground with a soft 'fwump', tiny muzzle still wrinkled in a snarl. His mother screams as he falls, and risks the proximity to the Viking to grab the young one from the ground. She clutches at her child, dragging him backwards and away from this blood-crazed beast. "No -" She pleads, shaking her head as his gaze turns to her. She backpedals across the worn, wooden floor of the hut - she's slipping in the blood. Her voice is tense, high-pitched. It breaks with her cries for mercy. "Leave - please!" The tears streak her face, she clutches the knife and brandishes it, shaking it at him from her position on the floor, clinging the unconscious boy to her with her free paw. "Please, please...." She sobs, her voice growing softer as her cries overtake the capacity for speech. She jolts as her back touches the wall, effectively halting her. "Please... Please, no..." It is little more than a whisper.
Kolbjorn has seen all manner of dealings with death and fear. The ones who hurled themselves on his blade, screeching, the ones who ran, also screeching, and then this. The ones who try to bargain, hoping beyond hope that inaction will save them. It amuses him, in a way. He has killed many beasts tonight. Four or five at least. But they all came to him, weapons swinging - his heart still pounds and his veins thrum and his muscles are tight. His thick, shaggy tail swings lazily behind him. She is still young, younger than the mousemaid at least, and her eyes and tears shimmer in the light of the fires outside. Otters, he always found, were not so far from his own kind. Kolbjorn stares at her with the same blood-fueled energy, but something shifts, just barely. He advances on her in four quick strides and moves to bat away the knife with the shaft of the axe. "You ask for mercy?" he wonders, moving to tear her son away. "All things must be fought for. So fight." But it makes no real difference to him.
"No.....No...please!" As he reaches for her son, a different kind of desperation floods her. A mother's instinct, perhaps, and she screeches, grappling the limp, unconscious child back to her bosom. "DON'T TOUCH HIM!" She cries, sliding along the wall now, pushing herself along with only her legs, still from her position on the floor. The corner, however, blocks that final path of a helpless escape. "GET AWAY!" The knife swings, harmlessly, at the air. "GET AWAY FROM HIM!" But that look in his eyes - her chest rises and falls in rapid, gasping breath. Fear for her own fate starts to sink in. "Please." It's the last, desperate utterance from one who has lost all hope. She can feel how this is to end - she can see it in his eyes, in the blood on his clothes. Her grip changes on the knife, and her gaze flicks from him, to the child in her lap. There is no coming back from this night - but the way he snatched at the child... What would they want with him? A life of slavery, or worse? Even if just left for dead, he would awake to this world - he would never be the same. She knows, in her heart, that she has seen him smile for the last time. No. No. She jerks the knife into the air, and plunges it into her son's chest with a wretched, strangled sob, before she yanks it free, and drags the edge of it across her own throat. The dullness of the blade only worsens the process. Death is not a swift relief - and as she collapses to the side, she is only capable of staring up at Kolbjorn, wide eyed. Finished.
Kolbjorn hisses as he recoils from the sight, his jaw twisting with something that a thousand weeping mothers could not do: disgust. He jerks away, trying to keep the spreading blood from touching him as he retreats, holding up a paw as if to ward off the already dying creature. "Sacrilege," he growls. This is not what he said. He said to fight. Not... this. Not this act of ultimate retreat. This is kinslaying and self-murder. It is ugly and against everything he was taught. The enthusiasm, the excitement, shrivels to contempt and vague remorse as he stands, shocked, watching mother and son die together. "You would have lived, thrice-cursed fool," he mutters. "You would have kept your honor." Well, that is two he intended to keep - gone. He should've been quicker, if only to avoid the hex of seeing that. He retreats out of the house and glares at one of his housecarls, who peers curiously inside. "Svipti sig lífi," is all Kol says. The carl mutters and kisses the hammer necklace he keeps with him, and fetches a torch to burn the evil place as Kol walks back to the center of the village, where prisoners are being rounded up.
Those that remain are a pitiful bunch - some weep and plead, some are still trying to defend themselves in vain, and - perhaps most of all - there are those who have been shocked past the point of function. They stare, dead eyed as they are shuffled and huddled together. Their bodies may still pump blood, but there is nothing there. The jill, clutching her son, passes as the leader vacates their hut. Despite the horrid act - she can feel some semblance of satisfaction. He did not get what he wanted - and he certainly was not treated to what he expected. She does not care for the 'life' he assures her she and her child would have kept. These beasts took her home, her husband, the innocence of her son... No - this was the only way. She is dead before the flames engulf their silent home, the pleas that still sound from the remaining captives lost on her.
Kolbjorn stands in front of the shattered villagers, raising an eyebrow at their "catch." He can see right now half of them wouldn't even survive the journey back to the ship. The rest would die on the ships back home. What a meager assembly. He may just have them all killed, but for now... "Let them scream," he says, holding up a paw to halt one of his crew who raises a club to silence the weeping ones. "I want them to hear." He raises his sword, having dropped the axe, and points to the surrounding woodland. "I want them to hear. All of them!" He stalks around until he faces south, to Redwall and the other places they have yet to burn down. "Do you hear yet?!" he bellows, raising sword and shield. "The cries of your sons and daughters! Storm Father has given them to us! Why do you wait? Where do you linger! But we will go to them!" He turns back to his crew and thumps his chest with his sword pummel. "We will go to them. And they will know. They will know the beasts of the north are here. And then... they will know no more."
They are coming...
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