The Last Berserker
This was the end, that much was clear. He was wounded seven times, warm blood flowing easily, soaking into the leather and cooling against the metal mail. His breath came slowly, haltingly. It was a pain, but not the final pain.
The walls of the narrow pass echoed with the well-ordered steps of the army. Even here, when marching through a pass littered with bodies, the levy Melrosh had trained was beyond anything that he had ever seen. But then, he’d always been the man to train up villagers.
Bracing himself against the stone, the berserker lifted himself up onto his feet. It was time. Inside him, the neka root was wearing off and the fur receded until it was not his skin but his warming clothing. The fur was always the last to go. It left with a pleasant shiver. He was going to miss it, but not the root which gave it to him. The memory of the bitterness made him shiver.
He walked slowly, his vision a blur. There was a large standing stone which he had picked out at the start of the battle, incase he would need it. A wise warrior knows his last battle, and the berserker had felt he would die here since he first saw the close pass.
His bloody hand marred the moss on the standing stone. If only he knew runes, he could make this his monument. The skalds would sing of his stone. Beyond the field of his vision a familiar voice called out, and the rhythmic marching stopped. Melrosh. The Wise, the Friend, the Butcher.
The berserker let out a groan as he rested against his monument. It was a good stone to die against. Battling against magic and charlatans was never glorious, it was almost always a terrible sight. Especially without magic of their own.
“Men, watch as the great Bear-Wearer Nall dies.” How many nights, how many nights had he drank beside that voice, each trying to outdo the other in the praise they heaped on the other. Too many to count, even had Nall known his numbers. And now there was only hatred. “The Breaker, the Beater, the Man-Eater, the Oathbreaker. This is the fate of all who break their oaths.”
The berserker laughed, silencing his foe. He could feel the army tremble as he laughed. “Yes, yes,” Nall bellowed. “Come and watch me die. Know that your works shall never eclipse mine. Feel the fear within you as you watch me die and know that you are a coward. Know that I have not betrayed my blood brothers like your master.”
“My blood brothers betrayed me,” the voice he had once battled beside called out. “They promised to name me king, to raise my right above all overs. They chose instead a child, born a bastard.”
“You know well as I that child is no bastard. He is the son of the God of Lightning, the king promised to restore these lands which we have so ruined. And he is escaping as you watch me perish, safe in the hands of the Golden Spear.” The last berserker laughed as the army ran by. Laughed and laughed until he could laugh no more. Nallsstone stood and stands still.
Michael Frutig 