Rain clouds settle over the battlefield, still teeming with his warriors gathering the mangled Timber bodies.
“This may be a record-setting battle. The sun hardly shifted position in the sky.” Sigvid smirks.
My, my, Timber Queen, have you lost your touch?
Slode grins as he sheaths his axes. The two walk the length of the cliffside field together, surveying the carnage they had wreaked mere moments ago. Scattered limbs, vacant eyes, and gore litter the once green pasture overlooking the vast river of the fjord. Blood from the Queen’s warriors runs through the grass like a river of death.
“How many did we lose?” Sigvid dares to ask.
Kar appears behind them, bathed in brain matter. “Two. Steinbjorn and Orm.” Swords plucked from their enemies fill his thick arms to the brim.
Built like Sigvid, Kar is well over the height of an ordinary man with broad shoulders and a thick chest. Only the graying braids of Kar’s hair and beard mark him as the oldest of his warriors at fifty winters—seventeen more than Sigvid. To think he was his father’s closest friend until his murder.
His Drengr army is close enough to the Timber capital of Scarwood that they would arrive ready to rest in the warm Timber beds after one stretch of marching. He can almost taste the air of her throne room.
First, they have their dead to honor.
Sigvid nods in response to Kar, even if his chest constricts uncomfortably. The Salt Province would feel the loss of these dedicated warriors, notably Steinbjorn’s daughter of thirteen winters, whom Sigvid and Slode helped raise.
“Continue to collect the weapons and then care for the dead.” He can’t help but notice the rough hilts of the enemy weapons.
Do I detect little usage? Tisk tisk, my little Queen.
Either she is running out of soldiers to throw at him, or she had grown cocky.
While his Drengr collect the enemy bodies to burn, Sigvid withdraws a golden curl from within his breast pocket. He twirls the delicate lock of hair between his rune-tattooed thumb and forefinger.
Remember me, Sigvid.
He chuckles, remembering the snark packed in her words. In response to her letter, he sent her the head of her remarkable General Rowley, enclosed with a note that said, “I cannot cease imagining my hands tightening around your neck. The thought of you breathing your last makes me harder than stone. I will never forget killing you, my dear sweet Queen.”
After that moment, they engaged in a series of twisted gift exchanges. Mostly tongue-in-cheek as a means of poking fun at the other’s failures.
Despite having never laid eyes on nor heard from her in the flesh, he still counts the days until the cold steel of his axe slices through her neck. Precisely in the way he ended her weak husband, Rendel, who deluded himself into being a strong King. Gold armor and all.
No matter. Sigvid’s Drengr would force the golden-haired queen to her knees, and then the real fun would begin.
Helga, one of his shield maidens, appears at his side. “The bodies are prepared to return to the Depths, my lord.” Her raven hair is twisted into braids. Blood and war paint splatter her exposed skin, yet a wide, toothy smile pokes through the gore.
Sigvid joins his Drengr by the edge of a dramatic cliffside where the treacherous river cuts through the fjord. Two large bodies lay on the ground, wrapped in cloth, stocked with weapons and food, and cinched with rope.
“Oh, great Briny God of strength. We ask these souls, who served you ‘til their final breath, to navigate their way to your halls in the Depths where all those in your favor shall return one day. We thank you for your unwavering might and ask for your blessing upon the living who must carry on.” Kar recites the prayer and then presents the offering of sage and crushed shells to the roaring fire before him.
Four Drengr appear, two by each dead comrade. They slowly lift the men while the army chants a funeral Salt hymn. Once the chanting ends, the men heave the corpses over the cliff to be consumed by the river rapids of the fjord.
Unlike Orm and Steinbjorn, the enemy bodies are burned to ash and scattered into the water. The act is a mark of disrespect in Timber culture, which celebrates elaborate burials in winding catacombs. All departed souls on the continent of the Endless Shore find themselves in one of the six afterlives. Venerated warrior spirits, thevísir, guide the dead onward.
Now, Sigvid’s living prisoners would be subjected to something far worse. And that is if the gods did not already slate their pathetic lives for the dreaded Abyss. This vast nothing awaited those denied entrance to one of the afterlives.
Pikes are gathered into a pile as he personally inspects the implements. One can hardly call the six boys before him prisoners. Not when caught fleeing the battle, having pissed themselves.
Sigvid did not suffer cowards.
He stands back to take in the sweat gushing from their brows whiletheir bodies rock back and forth as they begin to acknowledge the inevitability of his infamous wrath.
“You are hardly soldiers,” he addresses them with contempt. “Yet, you are still taking command from a higher power. That power saw fit to outfit young boys to defend her people against the likes of me.” He quips with disdain. “Tell me, soldiers of Timber, what did your Queen have planned next?” He paces silently up and down the line of men. “There is no need to fear me, for the first to answer is offered a swift and painless end.”
He crouches until he is at eye level with the boy he plucked earlier. Tears trickle down his smooth cheeks as he violently sways.
