Such tactics are used because they are effective.
I come to the door of the house. It is slightly ajar. Holding my breath, I press the flat of my hand against the rough wood and press it open, slowly. There is a squeak so faint that I only make it out due to the utter stillness of the night.
There is a flickering light in a dying hearth, and it alone lends light inside the house. It’s enough for me to make out what is indeed a gruesome sight. A table has been turned over and a chair splintered to pieces. A dark stain that I assume is blood, is splattered across the floor just next to the shattered chair.
There is a form lying just out of sight in the shadows. The form is still although I do not know if that disqualifies it from being a draugr. A smaller form is standing with its back to me. It’s a girl, probably about ten or eleven winters, not quite old enough for a coming-of-age ceremony, but a bit too old to run around carelessly with the other village children. I remember the age well, it’s when the girls will learn to tend a house from their mothers before they are forced to become warriors themselves.
It was the age I was when my mother left me.
I take a small step forward, studying the girl from behind. She sways slightly, her shoulders going back and forth as she stares into the hearth.
My instinct screams at me that I am making a mistake, but another glance at the body on the floor and I make out skirts tangled around sprawled legs and ashy brown hair, the exact shade as the girl’s, forming a halo around a head held in the shadows.
That body was likely this girl’s mother, I cannot leave her abandoned and alone. No child deserves such a fate, not even one from another clan. Not even a draugr, if she is indeed one.
My hand lands on the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, are you all right?” I whisper. “Don’t worry, I’m alive. I can help you.”
The girl turns toward me, empty blue eyes with an ethereal blue glow peering into my soul. I stumble back as the girl turns more fully toward me, revealing an ax embedded in her chest, a circle of blood forms a near perfect circle around the front of her dress. A heather gray embroidered with little flowers. She is holding a knife, such as the kind used to skin the hunted animals. I turn back to the body, making out a large stain of what was once pooled blood around her and then turn back to the little girl.
A draugr.
And yet still, I hesitate.
I hold up my hands. “I don’t want to fight you.”
The little girl says nothing, her expression betrays nothing; and then without warning she lunges forward. I stumble backward, tripping on one of the broken off legs of the shattered chair. I nearly fall but manage to gain my balance at the last second and raise my ax up to block her swing.
I shake my head, trying to snap myself out of this daze that I am in. I know that if I am to live that I must fight back, and yet it goes against everything that I know and feel and believe in to fight this child.
I move back again, dodging her next blow and find myself stepping back out into the night air. It is crisp and cold.
The little girl draugr follows me out, and I glance over my shoulder for something that I can use to shove her back into the house, perhaps barricade her there since I can’t force myself to use an ax against this girl, not while there is still one buried in her chest.
Suddenly there is a blur of pale gray and scales, and the little girl is knocked over. Drekki lets out a growl, clamping his teeth into her shoulder and dragging her away. She doesn’t make a sound, not a cry penetrates the still night as she falls victim to my dragon.
I place my hand over my mouth to keep from crying. I don’t have time to show these weaknesses. As if to remind me of that fact, I catch something moving out of the corner of my eye. I turn, raising my shield just as an ax comes down on it. This new draugr is a man, perhaps the father of the family… or maybe the unwitting neighbor who was killed first and forced to act out this heinous deed.
I know not, all I know is that I do not show him the same restriction I showed when it was a little girl. I pull my shield off my back, before swinging it forward, smashing it into his face so hard that I bruise my arm. His jaw which was already hanging on by a thread, snaps off, leaving his upper teeth glaring furiously. It appears that the killing blow that took him out was a slice across his face. I steady my ax, turning so as to gain more momentum and then aim just below the cavern of his gaping mouth and glinting teeth.
The rest of his head drops to join the jaw that is lying on the hard frosty dirt.
I wrinkle my nose as I step over his fallen form. I don’t care if he was my enemy in life, I feel nothing but pity for him in death. At least I can believe that this was a kinder fate than allowing him to remain the puppet of the very man who killed him and likely turned him against his loved ones.
There is more of a commotion coming from the center of the village, so I take off toward that. It’s likely Marcello enacting the next part of the plan. I slow my step as I near the center of the village. I know that I’m almost to the heart of this town because the buildings here were built farther apart, leaving room for a square for the children to play safely within the confines.
As I round the final house, I catch sight of the longhouse.
I stop, pressing myself up against the nearest building. Something bumps my leg and I look down to see that Drekki is once again at my side. I don’t want to think of what became of the little girl, so I quickly turn my attention back forward. Just in time to see a dark form race into the building. This is followed by a cluster of lumbering bodies; I count at least twenty. They are not moving very fast, but I suppose they are still moving faster than I would expect a corpse to be able to.
I see something swish just beside the building and look up to see Worm only visible to the keen eye. He is lying so low that it’s impossible to make him out if you don’t already know what you are looking for.
It was decided that Marcello should be the one to lure the draugrs in because not only was it his plan to enact, but because he wouldn’t die. This is proven as he slides out of the door a second after the last draugr enters, slamming it shut. He peers down at himself, and then looks up at me with a grin. “The theory was correct. So many of them swung at me, but I wasn’t even nicked.”
“You can come to terms with your own immortality later,” I say as I race into the square. I shove down a wood beam, locking the door.
There are thumps on the other side as I back up and let out the whistle giving Worm permission to light the building.
In only a second the thatching has gone up in flames, followed by the wooden frame. Golden yellow and brilliant red flames dance around blue as the flames consume the building and all those trapped within.
