Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter L - Heida

níðingr — A níðingr was someone to be scorned and hated. He was a shameful coward. A dishonorable back-stabber. Those who broke the warrior code (almost like the chivalric code) would have been considered a níðingr.

These were not men that were whelming up from the shore. They were bearlike giants. Hundreds of bear-coats, berserkir, were tearing up the hill like a pack of maddened, howling bergfolk. They charged into the fray with the force of a thunderclap. But it was not the Blackmanes they hungered after.

There was time for only momentary shock at the realization that the bearmen were to fight for the Blackmanes. Whosoever they were, these were not Harek's men. Hardly men at all, in fact. But alongside them they fought nonetheless.

One of the giants flew straight past Heida, battering into Thorgny's warriors with vicious force. Even Heida was momentarily stunned as she staggered back. They were feral and crazed, seemingly oblivious to aught but destroying and consuming their opponents.

Roth's men too were in their battle haze, the berserker mushroom rushing through their veins. They lunged, and snapped, and roared, and hacked at the enemy.

Only Roth still seemed himself. Though he fought as violently and monstrously as the rest, his eyes were not as glazed nor as mad as that of his úlfheðnar. And like him, as a result of their supernal heredity, Heida too was unaffected by the "battle fruit" that had so possessed the others.

Not so the newcomers. Their demoniac rage filled the valley and drenched the earth in blood.

Heida caught sight of Roth catching a spear mid-flight before he hurled it back whence it came, returning it to its owner and striking that spearman that had durst thrown it. He was truly magnificent to behold.

Meanwhile, there was nothing left of the warrior poets they had been before. Instead they were now wholly consumed by either wolf or bear. Not even Eirik sang the battle song, for he too was possessed.

His right arm had been accoutered with an ax which he wielded forcibly, and in his left hand he swung another. Two hands or one, it mattered not — he was as deadly as his kin. More powerful an axman, in truth, than he ever had been a bowman. And at the latter he had been the very best. She and Eirik no longer had need to fight back to back, for both sides were now evenly matched.

The tide was shifting once again. In their favor.

Thorgny's and Harek's men were falling back. Of the king there was no sign, but Thorgny had somehow maneuvered himself to the rear of his retreating warband. Gisli, however, was still close enough for her to reach him. And with that one she had unfinished business.

She glared at him. And in so doing she witnessed the horror unfold. Gisli, broken-handed or not, was aiming one of his spears at one of the úlfheðnar. At Roth.

"Roth!" she screamed, her heart slamming in dread. "Beware!"

He heard her warning and looked up from his grim work. But all too late; and the spear struck true.

"No!" she shrieked, disbelieving what unfolded.

Roth staggered suddenly, gripping the pike head that now jutted out from his midriff. He gaped, incredulously; and then dropped to his knees. Aila was at her son's side instantly, but Heida felt the vast distance lying fatally betwixt them. The crush of bodies seemed to carry her further from him like an icy fjord. At length she stopped fighting it.

The rage mounted, a firestorm surging from a peak, as it overcame her horror, and she therewith whirled on Gisli. The níðingr! He'd struck a man whilst his back was turned! Like the shameful coward that he was!