Primal fury trial of the.., p.3
Primal Fury:Trial of the Berserker, page 3
Orsin shook his head. He couldn’t finish the thought. To speak it would give it too much power.
“You worry too much!” Torben’s words were brash but his eyes were soft.
For a moment, at least. Then the brassy, bold bear was back.
“Besides, nothing could kill me! You may be good, but I’m better. You may be strong, but I am stronger. I am the mightiest of our cohort, and everyone knows it.” Torben smirked.
Orsin grinned and resisted the urge to add everyone except Mathjara.
“And do not forget,” Torben added, “we will have these.”
Their weapons, hammer and axe, gleamed red in the forge light, thirsty for blood and glory.
Chapter 4
The twilight skies were quiet as Orsin rose, stretching. Today was a day of final preparations, of gathering his supplies and checking that he—and Torben—were properly outfitted for the coming Trial. It was a test of survival, and of self-reliance. And while a fully grown Fursja was mighty and could carry a great deal, it was impossible to pack vast stores of food and water. To survive the Trial you needed to be smart, and prepared, as well as self reliant.
Could he survive for a good long while off his fat stores? Yes. But he would be weeks if not months out on the Tundra, hunting Herd beasts until he had accumulated sufficient glory in the eyes of Weihlaris.
Breakfast was a quiet, unhurried affair, if only because the rest of his family, like Orsin, was unable to sleep easily knowing he would depart today. Torben blinked blearily as Grunin moved around the table serving the food.
It was quiet. There was a hint of expectation in the air but Orsin fought it off, choosing instead to store up this moment of peace and togetherness with his family. It would carry him through the cold days of his Trial, and feed the flame of his determination, reminding him what he was fighting for.
What all Fursja fought for.
“Eat up,” Grunin said quietly. “This is the best meal you’ll have in a long while.”
“Indeed,” Ljorn chimed in. “So show some appreciation.”
“Thank you mudor,” they chorused.
“How long is the journey to the wall again?” Torben asked, perking up a bit more as he ate.
“Two days,” Ljorn answered. “You can get there faster moving at speed, but the caravan with your cohort will move at a more sedate pace. You’ll need to conserve your strength, after all.” The older Fursja smiled, and if it was a bit forced, none of his family dared to mention it. “You want to be at your best when you do to face the Herd.”
“We will be,” Orsin said firmly.
Torben glanced at him, eyes widening just a bit in surprise. Orsin wasn’t usually quite so vocal in his certainties. But Orsin knew what their parents needed to hear, and he said it. He said it firmly enough, and strongly enough, that they had to believe it.
“Indeed,” Grunin said firmly. “Now, finish up, all of you. We should begin walking towards the caravan staging grounds now.”
Orsin and Torben nodded, rising to fetch their packs and gear while Grunin cleaned up the remains of breakfast. There weren’t many. Orsin and Torben knew the value of storing up a good meal before lean times.
Then they left. Orsin turned back and looked once more at the tall, blue granite longhouse that had been his home as long as he could remember. Cheery yellow light glowed from the windows. Most houses kept small lights glowing throughout the grey season, to chase away the gloom.
Orsin smiled. It was a good sight. Then he turned to follow Torben and their parents, already striding away toward their destination.
Grunin and Ljorn accompanied them, walking in front of them chatting amiably, of simple, mundane things. Orsin and Torben followed quietly, listening. In the blink of an eye they had passed through Velegard to the assembly point where Orsin and Torben’s cohort were gathering. Friends and family gathered all around, and a sombre closeness dominated the assembly.
There was joy here, but it was fierce and guarded. Everyone knew this may be the last time they saw their loved ones. And yet there was honor in the battle, and glory in the service to Weihlaris and to the world, so there was little sadness.
An honor guard of seasoned Fursja warriors was assembled to escort them. These older warriors were beyond regular active duty, but there was still might within their arms and determination showed in the grey of their muzzles.
“Form up!” The captain of the honor guard called out. “Prepare to depart!”
A swirl of activity followed those words as caravaners quickly checked the security of their goods and the readiness of their beasts. Families flurried into a final blizzard of farewells and whispered words. Orsin’s family was no different.
“It’s time. Goodbye my loves. Return safely to me.” Grunin smiled and kissed each of them on the cheek.
“Weihlaris watch over you,” Ljorn said.
Orsin said his farewells quickly, quicker even than Torben, which surprised him. His adoptive brother had talked of little else for months, yet now that it came time to depart he lingered with their mudor and vador, storing up the moment like it was fat for the lean season.
“We shall be back,” he said firmly. “We will make you proud and bring glory to the family. Praise Weihlaris.”
“Praise Weihlaris,” Torben echoed, paw still clasped with that of Grunin’s.
The family shared one more small smile amongst them and then parted.
Orsin shouldered his pack and made sure Muinnajhr was secured at his side. Everything was in place, including his pouches of valendjahr (the one he always carried, the one his mudor had given him, and the spare his vador had prepared). He’d checked and double checked. There was nothing left to do.
The caravan was beginning to shift and move. Torben was at his side. It was time to go.
Orsin stood next to Torben, the two of them shifting slightly in the line of assembled warriors-in-training who would undertake the Trial this year. They stood assembled before the Bloody Gate, which had held back the might of the Herd for centuries without ever once having been breached. It rose high above them, several times the height of the tallest Fursja warrior. It was said that in days of old the Fursja counted giants amongst their allies, and that was one reason that Vaeggdor was so large, that giants had helped build it.
The journey to this place had been, if not easy, not at all arduous. Those who guided the hopefuls to the Trial knew the importance of conserving their strength. There would be little enough time for rest beyond the wall, and every moment that could be granted to prepare the young Fursja for what awaited them was given.
Orsin had hated the pace. His fur itched constantly with the need to be somewhere, to be doing something. But the journey was slow and uneventful and he was left with only his thoughts for company. That and Torben’s and Bijask’s abysmal jokes.
After they had arrived, Orsin had checked his gear. Then he had checked over Torben’s gear. Then he had checked his once more.
Everything had been in order.
The cohort had been given the chance to sleep, but Orsin had been unable to. And judging by the muttering coming from the bedroll next to him, Torben hadn’t been able to either. Orsin suspected none of his fellows had.
Now they stood assembled before the wall. It was a massive stone construction, rising meter upon meter into the air, and Orsin knew it was incredibly thick as well. Only a very few gates—like the one in front of him—pierced the might of Vaeggdor. They were titanic things, forged of the strongest metals known to the Fursja and reinforced with ingenuity and every blessing and spell the shamans could conjure. Runes all but burned into his eyes from the metal of the gates.
“Impressive,” rumbled Sengetiid, the sight drawing an unusual number of syllables from the usually taciturn Fursja.
Orsin was more focused on what would happen next. Soon those gates would open and he, Torben, and the rest of the cohort would pass through in the lands of the Herd and the Trial would begin. Well, it would begin properly once they had journeyed for a day from the gate itself. Herd territory did not truly begin this close to the gate. The Fursja defended it too ferociously. It would not be a Trial this close to their might.
“Warriors of Weihlaris,” Warlord Ursahre roared from the battlements above the gate, interrupting Orsin’s thoughts. His voice, vast and rough, echoed easily down to their ears in spite of the vast distance and rolled across the tundra in all directions.
“For that is what you are. Warriors,” he continued. “To simply stand here in the face of death, to defy the abominations the Herd had created, has made a part of itself, that requires the heart of a true warrior.”
Ursahre began to pace back and forth, a short span along the battlements, never quite moving past the edges of the gate that loomed before them.
“Yet even with a heart filled with the Fury of Weihlaris himself, warriors fall. Some of you will fall, out beyond these gates. For our foe is a mighty one, and a cunning one.”
A murmur sprang up amongst the assembled Fursja youth. That almost sounded like praise for the enemy. It was not something they had heard spoken before, not in the reaches of Svanhalor further from the great barrier wall, Vaeggdor.
“Yes,” Ursahre answered the question no one dared shout to him. “I do respect the enemy. To disrespect a foe is to risk underestimating them. To risk overestimating them. Either course of action can get you killed. I say this not to fill your hearts with fear but to gird you with knowledge. The knowledge that may very well save your life, beyond these gates. And you know what lies beyond these gates! You have seen it, now. Heard the things that cry in the gloaming, hungry for fresh flesh.”
They had. When the caravan had arrived yesterday they had been taken to the top of the battlements and allowed to gaze out into the wilds controlled by the Herd, the territory beyond the wall. Misshapen forms roamed the land, in large solitary strides and in quick, deadly packs. It was like they were just waiting beyond the gate, hungry for Fursja and somehow knowing that very soon those gates would open and the Herd beasts would have their chance for blood, fresh and hot and spurting from the vein if they could claim it.
“But know this also!” Ursahre’s voice roared out, louder even than before, the purple mark of Weihlaris—the mark of a berserker—pulsing across his fur. “You are warriors of Weihlaris, questing for the favour of the god himself! You are a force to be reckoned with and you are a match for the horrors beyond this wall. The Fursja are the shield upon which the world has rested for centuries. Our blood and our sacrifice keep the other nations and peoples of this world safe, and happy, and living free. This is our duty and our honor. You are the latest in a long line of warriors to take up this standard, but you are not the least, and you shall not be the last!”
This time a roar burst form the mouths of the assembled Fursja. Orsin’s fur danced and he felt like sparks were zipping from strand to strand. His heart pounded in his chest and he tasted sweet copper on his tongue. Beside him, Torben roared a battle cry and raised his war hammer high above his head. Several other Fursja in the line echoed the movement.
Above them, on the battlements, the grizzled veterans who defended the wall began to beat their weapons against shields, water barrels, weather shelters—whatever they could find nearby. A deep, pounding rhythm sprung up and tension began to mount as it pushed forward, demanding release.
“Warriors,” Ursarhe roared, “are you ready to face your foe? Are you ready to seize glory before the eyes of Weihlaris? Are you ready to cull the Herd?”
Orsin and his assembled cohort roared their assent. Someone, he couldn’t see who, suddenly broke and began running toward the gate. Quickly, the rest of the assembled Fursja began charging after the leader.
“To battle! Blood and glory!” Warlord Ursahre cried, raising Valaharion defiantly to the sky.
The gates were flung open wide as the assembled Fursja roared their defiance to the death which waited outside their walls.
Chapter 5
Orsin charged forward, his brethren around him. If there had been more light in the wintry gloom, it would have flashed off their weapons, all fresh and newly forged, sharp and eager for their first taste of blood. Sharp, cold air bit at the back of his throat, crisp and fresh, though soon enough the tang of copper and the cloying sweetness of Herd rot would surround them.
The tundra beneath their paws was slick with frost. Were the Fursja not so well suited to their arctic home it might have made the terrain treacherous. But the heat of battle was more than a match for any nibble of frost that might try to make its way past the innate Fursja resistance to cold.
Torben was charging forward next to him. They moved, shoulder-to-shoulder almost, hammer in Torben’s hand, axe in Orsin’s. As one they roared defiance to the Herd.
And the Herd answered. Beasts of all kinds boiled out of the low hills beyond the wall. Lesser Herd beasts, all of them, but they were no less dangerous for that fact.
And what Baron would be this close to Vaeggdor, let alone something like a Prince? If there had been one of those monstrosities so near to their lands it would be the full Fursja army charging across the tundra, not Orsin and his cohort.
Orsin’s eyes were quick and the lessons his father, the might-have-been skald, drilled into him with many many tales beside the firelight over the winter nights of the past several years allowed him to quickly pick out his foes. While no two Herd beasts were the same, the disease that created them mutating them all in strange and different ways, certain patterns repeated. There was a ruthless efficiency to the things, and successful changes—deadly mutations—persisted.
The larger beasts were easier to pick out first. Orsin spotted several streidnirs, massive beasts twice as tall as the average Fursja, with eight legs that gave them a scuttling movement and almost impossibly fast reflexes. They had massive horse-like heads filled with razor-sharp fangs and faceted growths for eyes that made it impossible to sneak up on them as they could see in all directions.
There were also lanky, sleek things like giant cats with hyper-extended legs. They could cover vast distances and their persistent roaming had earned them the name rangers. They were relentless and cunning, and their natural colouring shifted, allowing them to become almost invisible as they stalked their favorite prey: Fursja.
Between the larger beast, smaller packs of things roamed. The remains of what once had been loyal pets such as hunting hounds and wild canines like wolves and foxes. Their similar mutations brought them together into a hive mind that allowed them to cut down foes with ferocious efficiency. Great patches of fur fell from these, replaced with a pulsating, roiling mess of boils and sores that leaked a virulent green pus, highly infectious to the touch. The rotten fangs in their mouths were sharp, and could drive deep into Fursja skin where they would break off and slowly dig themselves deeper into the flesh of their own volition, seeking a vital organ to puncture and infect.
Orsin and his cohort began the battle as a tight formation, charging forward and cutting into a pack of the smaller Herd beasts and sliding through them like a hot knife through butter. Bladed and blunt weapons flashed and Herd beasts keened in agony. Fur and flesh parted and gouts of black ichor stained the white tundra all around them. Against the assembled might of the cohort, a single pack stood not a chance.
Orsin spotted Bijask and Sengetiid fighting together with Tharsuld, another young Fursja Orsin had met only briefly the night before. Together the trio methodically dismantled a group of herd-twisted wolf-things, though the pack was so mangy and rotted it would have scarce been a threat to a single one of the warriors. Still, they worked well together, an efficient machine of death.
But Orsin had an ally of his own to fight with. Torben fell into an easy rhythm with him. His hammer fell with ringing blows, stunning those it did not crush outright. Only the largest of the pack beasts could withstand even a glancing blow from Torben;’s mighty arm.
Orsin’s axe glimmered and flashed, slicing with lethal efficiency into the opening left by Torben’s slower blows. The metal of the axe head cleaved through the spine of one of the smaller fox-like creatures, sending long streams of entrails spiralling out into the frosty air. Black ichor splattered across Orsin’s fur and the ground beneath their feet became increasing dark with spilled vital fluids.
They charged forward before the battlefield could become mire, however. There were more and more Herd beasts pouring out of the nearby hills, drawn by the sound and scent of battle. Mindless, they threw themselves at the Fursja.
The cohort began to draw apart, individual Fursja chasing choice targets and generally following the call of the Trial, which demanded they separate and stand on their own for battle. Small clumps remained, however. Close friends, family members, those used to working together as a cohesive unit, all of these remained, gathering kills with greater speed and efficiency. There was no need to sprint off alone immediately. The Trial would not begin properly for a given Fursja until they were a day’s journey away from the wall.
Torben and Orsin remained together, though they had struck out further to the northwest than the rest of the cohort. They had just dispatched the last of a pack, Torben’s hammer caving in its skull sending grey-and-black brain matter spraying across the frozen ground. In that moment, when they were catching their breath, the streidnir struck.
A long, clawed leg lashed out as the thing galloped past, drawing a thin line of blood across Orsin’s shoulder. He roared in rage and pain, lashing out with his axe, but the damned thing was too fast and evaded his blow.
