This more than the filthy starved caricature himself brought a sense of caution to Ragnar. There was a strange feeling to the silent man in this Hall. Something he had never experienced before. An aura that one might find while walking through a field of ancient battles where warriors lay dead with their weapons beneath one's feet.
Ragnar spoke, no trace of humor in his voice now. "And just what are you?" He turned his attention to his guests. "Have some of you thought to play a joke on me?"
The creature interrupted him. His voice was a dry husky whisper that everyone in the room could clearly hear. "What am I? I am the death that walks at every man's shoulder. I am the bearer of silence and the end to pain." He raised the axe in his right hand and pointed the spiked end at Ragnar. "I am Casca."
Lida's lips let free a small cry at the name, but was quickly silenced by Ragnar with a back hand across her mouth. He growled low and dangerously. "This is a poor joke, wretch. And I find it not to my liking. The Roman dog is long dead by my order."
Casca laughed, a thin bitter sound that sent chills up the backs of the less hearty there. "So you did order. But I live… And now, it is your turn to die." He leaped forward, axes swinging. One would not have thought that he would have had enough strength in his thin knobby arms and wrists to lift even one of the heavy-bladed battle axes, but he did and more.
Two men died with their smashed heads laid open and their brains mingled with their dinner. Glam had moved behind the feasting table and was waiting for Casca's move. When it came he was ready.
Casca leaped upon the table, scattering bowls and flagons. Ragnar fell over on his back in his haste to get up, and the bony man was instantly on him. He had lost one axe when it stuck in the brain case of one of Ragnar's bodyguards. With the remaining one, he used the side and knocked Ragnar to his stomach, holding him there with the spiked point at the base of his neck. Glam had moved to cover him. The guests and their ladies did nothing. They knew that to move was to invite death.
Casca stood, sides heaving, over the object of his anger. "You would starve me and blind your own daughter." A beef bone, the size of a big man's forearm, fell from the table to rest beside Ragnar. There were still some chunks of meat on it. Even at this moment, the sight of the first food he had been near in two years was too much. Keeping the spike at the neck of Ragnar, he picked up the bone and began to gnaw on the large knuckled joint. The meat was half raw. If it hadn't been filled with red blood, there would have been no way he could have swallowed it with his dry throat. But the fat and blood aided its descent into his gut, where his stomach juices attacked the first real bite of food they had seen since his confinement. Ragnar squirmed under the point of the spike digging into the back of his neck, his beard and face pressed firmly into the straw covered floor. One of Ragnar's bodyguards, a man almost as big as Glam with a face as red as his and a full, flame-colored beard and mustache, lunged over the table at Casca to free his master. Moving his axe from Ragnar's neck to face the attacker, Casca swung, bringing the blade down with such force that it split the man's head into two parts and buried itself four inches in the solid oak table.
Roaring, Ragnar jumped up from the floor and scrambled to his feet. Casca, without thinking, let go of the stuck axe and swung the beef bone; he wasn't going to let Ragnar get away. The knobbed knuckle of the bone struck Ragnar across the forehead, reeling him back. Casca switched hands, putting the bone into his right and grabbing Ragnar by his beard, then pulled him onto his knees and came down once more with the bone. This time, the knuckle hit with a crack that could be heard a hundred yards away. Ragnar's forehead split under the blow. He died instantly, faster than Casca would have killed had he had the choice, but no matter; the rotten old bastard was dead. He tossed the bone beside the body and worked the axe out of the table. No one else had moved. He turned to the stunned feasters.
"You women may leave, and take Lida with you."
Lida began to protest, wanting to know what was happening, but Casca silenced her.
"We will have time later. Obey me now. I still have some work to finish. Now go."
The women obeyed, glad to be out of the room. The door swung shut behind them. The men made no protest. They might have supported the cruel reign of Ragnar, but they were still men of the north and born to battle. They would stay though death would come in the next few minutes.
Casca uprighted Ragnar's overturned chair and sat down, watching the men he and Glam would soon fight. Stretching over, he took a flagon of mead and drank deeply, swallowing repeatedly, his eyes never leaving the faces of the men he would kill. He took a roast bird and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing some pieces and swallowing some of it whole. Even the bones he ground between his teeth. There were no sounds but those of breathing and his eating. Color was beginning to return to his face, strength flowing fresh to withered limbs. His mouth still hungered, but his shrunken stomach could hold no more. He wiped his fingers on the sleeve of the red-bearded man he had killed, to rid them of grease. He would need dry palms for this night's work.
Glam stood behind him, axe swinging slowly to and fro, waiting. He too had waited long for this night; a few minutes more or less made no difference.
Ragnar's men waited also until Casca had finished his meal. It seemed to take much longer than it actually did, but they were in no rush; eternity they knew was not far away.
Casca raised himself from the table, his eyes never leaving the waiting warriors. He spoke with renewed strength. "Well, gentlemen, shall we get on with it?"
One by one, the warriors rose and moved around to the front of the table. There had been eleven guests. Now eight stood in a rank waiting. They had drawn their weapons and stood ready.
One elder warrior, with more gray in his beard than the others, looked closely at the face of the man behind the table, and said, "Aye, it is you, though we were sure you died long ago." A smile played at his mouth. "Indeed, you look more like a corpse than old Ragnar does. He, no doubt, did you and the lady a great wrong, and we did nothing to stop him. He was our sworn liege, no matter what he did, and ours was a blood oath. Now, it is up to you. I know that there is something within you that we cannot win against, some force that sustains you when others would die. It has been said the gods have touched you. Perhaps that is so. At any rate, I know that what happens now is in your hands. Whether we live or die is your decision. I know we may not be leaving this room alive, but you will know that you have had a fight against men."
The old warrior raised his sword in salute and threw his cloak back out of the way of his sword arm. Then he bowed and stepped forward. "Let me be the first. As the eldest here, I claim that right."
Casca moved around the table, Glam close to his side. "Old man, you have proclaimed your guilt through your own lips. Blood oath." The words dripped with contempt from the Roman's mouth. "There is no oath so binding that it justifies pain only for another's pleasure. It was your support that permitted the beast to live. You could have stopped him, but it was easier to go along with him, to do nothing, in the name of an oath. Well, hear mine.
"I swear, before all the gods and demons of the world, that not one of you will leave this room alive. That here and now, you will pay your bill. This night, you have been judged, and the sentence is death."