SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

He stretched above the waves and drove into deeper water, swimming toward open sea until the flames sputtered and died. Not long after, his arms gave way and he was forced to embrace a remnant piece of wood. He gathered a few more as he drifted through a field of wreckage, desperate to collect enough to hold his weight afloat so he might rest his scorched and weary arms, but there was little of substance to cling to.

He was fast growing weary, hands benumbed in the cold swell. He cast a glance at the shore he’d left behind. He saw the lindvurm prowling the beach, its prodigious size diminished by distance, a frantic shadow cavorting about the field of its slaughter. And he saw the riders had returned to the slaughter as well, while the völur resumed their chanting, minus one of their nine. Bard wished his brothers glory in the next life; for certain, he would join them soon.

He watched as the island of Frei was swallowed by the darkness. Bard felt a pang of muted joy at having escaped despite every wave that carried him further from shore, and once the isle slipped from view, so did Bard slip into the ocean, the last of his strength sapped from his limbs.

Darkness encircled him. He took one last breath of glorious air before he plummeted toward the bottom of the sea.

Then came light.

He opened his mouth to greet the Valkyr, but choked and spit water from his lungs. Strong hands clutched him. Pain speared through his veins, and Bard cursed the god who would be so cruel as to not extinguish his agony before ferrying him to Valhöll.

When at last he could squint through cataracts of brine, he saw the wide-set blue eyes and freckly cheeks of the Valkyr who’d collected him. “I’d thought the choosers of the slain…might be hideous to behold,” he muttered, pressing a weak smile to his lips. “I thought…true.”

“Aye,” Hilde answered, drawing him higher onto the makeshift raft of splintered boards with a quiet chuckle. “And I thought I’d caught a fish worth keeping.”

Bard coughed and hooked sea sludge from the corner of his mouth. “Seems we’re both wrong,” he said, and clasped his blistered hand about hers.

She gave his a firm squeeze in return, both going silent as thunder serenaded them from above.

Bard’s stomach knotted at the sound. He stared over Hilde’s shoulder at the dark clouds boiling overhead, choking the flickers of dawn in their sullen advance. He spied dots of cankerous blackness growing in the distance, looming over the swell, riding its building fury toward them. Bluetooth’s ships or Haakon’s? They would know soon enough.

Bard gripped Hilde’s hand tighter, an oath to the Aldaföðr — the Allfather — playing at his lips. It seemed Óðinn’s hounds, ever ravenous and slaughter-greedy, had yet to give up the chase, and the halls of Valhöll still called.

In Vaulted Halls Entombed Alan Baxter

The high, dim caves continued on into blackness.

Sergeant Coulthard paused, shook his heavy, grizzled head. “We’re going to lose comms soon. Have you mapped this far?” he asked Dillman.

“Yes, Sarge.”

Coulthard looked back the way they had come, where daylight still leaked through to weakly illuminate the squad. “Radio it in, Spencer. See what they say.”

“Yes, Sarge.” Corporal Spencer shucked his pack and set an antenna, pointing back towards the cave entrance. “Base, this is Team Epsilon. Base, Team Epsilon.”

The radio crackled and hissed, then, “Go ahead, Epsilon.”

“We’ve followed the insurgents across open ground to foothills about eighty clicks north-north-east of Kandahar, to a cave system at… Hang on.” Spencer pulled out a map and read aloud a set of co-ordinates. “They’ve gone to ground, about eighty minutes ahead of us. We’ll lose comms if we head deeper in. Orders?”

“Stand by.”

The radio crackled again.

“They’ll tell us to go in,” Sergeant Coulthard said.

Lance Corporal Paul Brown watched from one side, nerves tickling the back of his neck. They were working by the book, but this showed every sign of a trap, perfect for an ambush. It would be dark soon, and was already cold. It would only get colder. Though perhaps the temperature farther in remained pretty constant.

He stepped forward. “Sarge, maybe we should set camp here and wait til morning.”

“Always night in a fucking cave, Brown,” Coulthard said without looking at him.

“You tired, possum?” Private Sam Gladstone asked with a sneer.

The new boy, Beaumont, grinned.

“You always a dick?” Brown said.

“Can it!” Coulthard barked. “We wait for orders.”

“I just think everyone’s tired,” Brown said. He shifted one shoulder to flash the red cross on the side of his pack. “Your welfare is my job after all.”

“Noted,” Coulthard said.