He wore leather trousers, the color of which meandered somewhere between the original brown leather and the black grime encrusted by years of wear. A tunic covered his barrel chest, this garment in much better shape with a red piping in the symbol of an eagle sown into the back. His arms were bare and the muscles rippled as he picked up his ax- Skullcrusher- from where it had rested next to his head.
The Danish ax was a weapon not many men, even few Vikings, could wield effectively in combat. Skullcrusher had a haft over four feet long of three inch thick oak. The base of the ax ended in a metal point, much like a spear, so it could be wielded either way. The head- the normal business end of the ax- was huge, with a single edge that Ragnarok honed every day as conscientiously as many fair-haired Viking women combed out their long hair. Opposite the cutting edge the head ended in four inch thick blunt surface, the part of the weapon that gave it it’s name. Ragnarok had smashed many a head with a mighty swing, knocking shield and sword out the way to find its target.
Ax in hand he remained perfectly still. His eyes looked toward the beach. There was nothing moving. He looked past the beach. A high wall of rock angled up disappearing into the fog. Ragnarok had climbed many such ridges surrounding fjords and he knew that the likelihood of an enemy doing that was slim. Then he turned in the direction Vikings always looked- to the water.
The black surface was ruffled by the wind in an almost hypnotic pattern. To the left, the fjord narrowed, eventually running into a glacier coming from the inner mountains. To the right, the fjord led to the sea, a narrow fifty foot opening between two high outcropping of rock the only was in and out. They had rowed in through that opening shortly before nightfall seeking landfall. No ship’s wake disturbed the surface of the water, no oars dipped into the water. All was still.
Ragnarok tensed. All was still now, the wind dying down, the water becoming mirror flat. The winds of the north were fickle, with a mind of their own to betray and confuse even the most experienced sailor, but to suddenly cease like that- Ragnarok shook his shoulders, pushing away a chill.
The fjord was on the west coast of Norway, north of even the most northernmost Viking settlements, where during Winter the sun was little more than a glow on the horizon for a few hours each day and the rest of the twenty-four hour cycle was spent in darkness. It was early Spring and while the beach was free of snow, patches of white still clung to the elevations just above.
There was nothing moving he could see. Nothing to indicate what might have woken him. There was also no warrior standing guard on the small wooden ledge six feet up on the main mast that served as the look-out post for the ship.
Ragnarok strode down his boat, stepping over sleeping bodies, pausing at the large rudder. He gently kicked one of the forms under the last bench.
“Eh?” a deep voice grumbled.
Ragnarok bent over and kept his voice low. “Hrolf, get up.”
Hrolf the Slayer pushed aside his blankets and sat up, head twisting to and fro.
“Who is supposed to be on guard?” Ragnarok asked.
Hrolf cursed as he looked down the boat and saw the empty post. “Duartr. I will whip him like a dog for-”
Ragnarok held up a hand, head cocked as he heard something, almost the same pitch as the howling wind that was now gone, but deeper, more threatening, coming from a single point in the distance. “He is not in his sleeping place.”
Hrolf stood, grabbing his sword and drawing it out of the scabbard. He was a foot and a half shorter than his leader, but broader, a keg of a man, with muscle layered on muscle and a tremendous belly under his leather tunic. The sword was as long as half Hrolf’s height, and very thick. The end was blunt as a Viking fought not by jabbing but by slashing. The edges on both sides were razor sharp and with the weight of the sword and the muscle Hrolf could put behind each stroke, the sword was capable of beheading a large bull with one slice.
“What was that?” Hrolf’s head turned toward the landward side.
“I don’t know,” Ragnarok said. “Get the crew awake- quietly- and the boat afloat.”
Ragnarok climbed onto the gunwale and jumped onto the beach, the pebbles making a very slight noise giving way under his leather boots and weight.
The distant howling set the hair on Ragnarok’s neck to rise. Not wolves, he did not fear them. Some of the blankets he slept under were made from the fur of wolves he had killed with ax or spear. Something different, something he had never heard before. Ragnarok had sailed the north sea to Eire Land, Iceland and even beyond to the land Eric the Red had so deceitfully christened Greenland. He thought he had seen all there was to viewed in the great white North. The unique sound told him there was something more he had not yet met, and his heart leapt at the thought, but he had given the order to Hrolf to float the ship as a Viking always protected his ship and his village before any other pursuit.
Ragnarok’s right hand tightened on the haft of the ax. The sound had come from over the ridge behind the beach. He kept his eyes focused on the steep walls as he crossed the beach to the scree pile of large stones deposited at the base of the steep rock wall.
Something was lying where the ground rose precipitously. A body. The top half jammed between two boulders. Ragnarok knelt next to the corpse. Ragnarok frowned. The man’s sword was gripped by both dead hands. He recognized the engraved cross-guard- it was Duartr’s. A good Viking death to have one’s sword in hand but who could have killed him before he gave an alarm? Ragnarok reached down and pulled the body back from between the boulders.
The head was gone. Even in the darkness, Ragnarok could see the white of the spine poking up above a bloody hole. Whatever had taken the head off had not done so cleanly. And the chest and stomach had been ripped open, as if a beast had feasted on Duartr’s innards.
Ragnarok let go of the body and stood. He could hear the boat being pushed out, wood scraping against pebbles and into water, hushed voices hissing orders. He looked up, scanning in short arcs, trying to see through the clinging fog.
His efforts were rewarded when he saw something moving, about two hundred feet above and to the right. Someone was climbing down. The strange screaming came again, closer this time, from near the top of the ridge, not from the climber.
Ragnarok growled, the sound coming from deep in his chest and not very loud. He felt the blood pounding in his head, the battle-fury rising with each accelerated heartbeat.
The figure was lower now, less than a hundred feet above his head, climbing with skill and speed. The body was covered with a black robe that dangled below it. Ragnarok climbed higher on the scree pile, closing the distance.
He reached a large slab, about eight feet wide and long, that had broken off the ridge and was now lying almost horizontal. Putting his feet wide apart, Ragnarok lifted up his ax and rested it on his left shoulder.
The figure was less than fifty feet away now, but Ragnarok’s focus was higher, searching for the source of the chilling screams, which were coming more often now, every few seconds. Ragnarok stepped back slightly as two screams, one right after another whipped by him. They had come from slightly different directions. And there was still the matter of what had happened to Duartr’s head and body- whoever or whatever had done that was already in the area.
The figure had altered direction slightly and was now climbing down directly toward Ragnarok. The black cloak swirled as the figure reached the slab and turned about, facing him, a deep hood covering the face, two hands upturned, empty of any weapon.