SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

He said an oath to the Allfather and to the Thunderer both, wishing his brother well on his way, yet despairing that Devin’s sacrifice was not enough to see Bard clear of the hellish abomination. The lindvurm screeched, and Bard heard it resume its chase, trees giving way to its insistence. The sound set a trail of Surt’s flames to Bard’s posterior, and he marshalled every last vestige within as he flew through the woods. Death came next for him, and there was naught else he could do. A warrior might make a final stand, but the crack of Devin’s bones echoed in Bard’s head, and the sharp salt of the sea was on the wind and gave him wings.

Then, the din of hundreds of voices and the familiar ringing of metal joined the vurm’s blaring. The trees parted before him and a yellow-white field hove into view. Greycloak’s and Bluetooth’s soldiers spanned the length of the winter-washed meadow, all locked in combat with Haakon’s forces, warriors and beasts alike.

Bard stopped at the forest’s edge and gawped not at the battle, despite a nidhogg atop a nearby man, screaming as it tore into his guts, but at the stupefying vision of greedy flames cavorting amidst their longships. The wrath of Surt himself leaped between the vessels on black pinions of distorted smoke. Bard roared in desperate fury. Their way home was well and truly gone, for Haakon had set his völur bitches’ magic loose upon the víkingr fleet, razing their ships in one fell blow, setting them to bright white flame like funeral pyres atop the water.

Bard’s heart thrummed a mournful dirge, but the beast at his back offered him no time to grieve. It burst from the trees with a savage howl, Devin’s steel still buried in its eye, the warrior’s blood still staining its maw. The ground shook beneath the lindvurm, and Bard nearly lost his footing, but terror lent him renewed strength. He realized he’d lost his ax in his flight from the beast, so he skirted a fighting throng of soldiers, took up a fallen sword, and jabbed it into an enemy who had spun on him but then paused upon taking note of the lindvurm bearing down on them. The warrior fell with a peculiar expression of awe and pain, and Bard bellowed and struck a leaping nidhogg, the bloody-hafted sword ripped from his grasp as it wedged in the writhing monster’s scales. Behind him, the lindvurm struck the ranks like an angry storm, men flung wildly about on the sharpened ends of teeth and claws.

Bard fought on, heading away from the vurm and into the hue of battle, seeking his doom while wielding steel against men rather than in the belly of that crazed, Hel-spawned abomination. His lungs billowed like forge bellows as he kicked an enemy warrior in the back and snatched his spear away. He turned and barreled toward the sea, toward where he saw the chanting völur raising their blue-painted arms to the sky, waving their knotted staves as they beckoned more storms of monsters and flame.

Every step rattled his jaw as he made his way toward that chanting circle. Behind him he heard the cries of his brethren as they fell, but he never once tarried, and just as he felt he could run no further, his feet struck the sandy beach, kicking up gold in their wake. He loosed his stolen spear with foul intent.

Focused as they were on their task, the ring of nine völur saw nothing until it was too late. The spear took the first in the chest. She grunted and fell back into her companions, pulling several down with her in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Bard crashed into another before they could gather their wits about them, fists flailing. Blue lips exploded with red as Bard waded into the group, but there were simply too many to keep track of.

Pain cut across his lower back, the smell of his own charred meat filling his nostrils a heartbeat later. He spun to see a lone völva holding her crooked staff in Bard’s direction. Wisps of fire sputtered at the tip. More flames crackled, and Bard was alight with witch fire. He screamed and beat at the flames but they would not be denied. Still more of the völur closed while he battled the conflagration he’d become.

Hooves thundered close by and amidst the whirling chaos Bard saw a half-dozen riders. He recognized Haakon leading them, and the Good King pointed at him with a bloodied sword. “Kill that man!” he ordered his warriors, and the others kicked heels to flanks, urging their mounts toward Bard, spears lowered.

Disarmed and aflame, Bard turned from the charging riders and Haakon’s blue-skinned she-demons, and ran for the sea as gouts of fire roared past. A moment later the frigid water caressed his ankles, and then his knees. Waves lapped at him, and he dove into their midst. Still the fires pecked at his flesh, steam hissing off his blackening skin, but Bard denied them their victim.