DEATH, PAIN, AND fear.
The Darkness wrapped around Ragnar. His scream before his last death resonated around the dark. He was unable to shake the image of the snake out of his mind and forget the pain of its fangs planted into his eyes.
It had not been the road to Helheim after all. It had not been the same slit of light that he had travelled towards with his stallion and with his thrall at his side. He had used the runic distaff to see the future, as runemistresses did. He had gleaned the far future in which Loki would be punished for his crimes against the gods and be tied up inside that cave, waiting for the final battle of Ragnarok, when the gods would die and the nine worlds would perish.
This was not the afterlife Ragnar had expected.
His heartbeat sped up on its own. It rested all the way up in his throat and he could hardly breathe for fear that something would jump out at him.
Tap, tap, he said in his head and pretended to knock the distaff on the ground. His runic distaff pushed the Darkness away in rhythmic pulses, and from the hollow apple-shape, a thread surged out through the dark. With the sound of a hundred knives sharpening against glass, the thread cut a veiled opening out of the Darkness.
Ragnar ran towards it and straight through, escaping the horrid sounds.
It was dark beyond the veil; dark as night. Although Ragnar illuminated the surroundings with his distaff, he could not see far. At the edges of what he could see, the Darkness pulsated in the rhythm of his own heartbeat.
Ragnar started at a loud clang. His shoes slid over muddy grass.
A howl shook the ground. Ragnar flinched away, his feet slipping on the wet grass. He caught himself with a hand on the ground. His palm came back red. The grass was not wet from mud or rain; it was dark and slippery from blood. Black blood clots covered the ground. Ragnar gulped and dried the blood onto his trousers.
Clashes of steel echoed around him. Horrid screams and slurps, and roars, and horns blowing.
Ragnar’s breaths were heavy. His heart raced. He turned around himself, worried that something would attack him. He wished that he could see what was going on around him.
Trying to calm himself, he shut his eyes tight and wished and wished that the Darkness would retreat and allow him to see further; and when he was calm enough to face the Darkness and the blooded grass and all the horrid sounds, Ragnar opened his eyes again. The Darkness had retreated, and with every pulse of his distaff it retreated further yet.
A warrior twice Ragnar’s height burst out of the dark to attack a much smaller woman. Her chainmail was made of silver, and her hair was long and golden. The goddess Sif, Ragnar knew as soon as he laid eyes on her. Fiercely, she fought the giant. She thrust a spear into the giant’s kneecap to make him fall, and with her axe, she went in for the final kill. Blood splattered out over her hands and face. Quick as lightning, she spun away from the giant corpse and rushed along the battlefield.
Ragnar gaped after her. A goddess, in this bloody battle, and a giant too. He swallowed nervously. This was the famous battle of Ragnarok, which had been foretold at the beginning of ages. On this battlefield, Ragnar’s gods would die.
He could not allow it to happen.
Make me fearless, he begged of the gods. Then, determined like his daughter Hilda had always been, Ragnar darted across the battlefield after Sif, searching for her gold locks. He ducked under the legs of giants and raced past lesser known gods and beasts. He couldn’t let her die; not any of the gods. They needed to survive so the nine worlds would survive, and so he could go to Helheim and be reunited with his wife and son.
The sky was dark and ashes rained down over the battlefield and swooped into the blonde hairs of fierce gods in expensive chainmail. Blood rained down over Ragnar as he ran through the crowd. In large clumps, it dripped onto his shoulders and soaked his tunic.
No one matched Ragnar’s searching stare. No one noticed him. Almost as if he wasn’t there, and perhaps he wasn’t. An observer with a distaff. Just a runemistress, glancing into the future.
Giants and gods fought to the death. Their corpses piled like great hills and mountains, and Ragnar crawled over them. Through the crowd of fighting giants and gods.
A great howl shook fear into everyone on the nearby battlefield.
The length of three longhouses down the hill from Ragnar’s mountain of corpses was a huge wolf. Ragnar saw it at the edge of the pulsing Darkness. Its teeth were longer and sharper than any he had ever seen before. They glistened and wrenched through three warriors at a time.
The warriors around the frenzied wolf parted for a fierce one-eyed man who fearlessly approached. His silver beard had been braided and partly coloured in blood. With his sharp spear, he pushed warriors and giants out of his way, all of whom looked small in his presence. His eye was set on the big wolf. Pieces of guts dangled from his jewelled chainmail; not his own guts, but that of giants and beasts he had slain.
Ragnar’s heart caught in his throat at the sight of the great Alfather.
Then, the panic washed over him.
This was how Odin, the great Alfather and leader of gods, was destined to die; his bones broken by the wolf’s sharp teeth. The future seers had foretold it, hundreds and hundreds of winters ago.
Ragnar stumbled down the mountain of corpses towards the Alfather. His fear of the Darkness was not enough to make him stop.
The yells of the fighting warriors, and the loud clashes of swords and axes, and the thunder above, were too loud for Ragnar to be heard. Odin would die at Fenrir’s lack of mercy.
Run away, run away, Ragnar repeated loud in his mind, like he had thought about tapping the distaff and like he had thought about making the Darkness retreat. Run away, run away, he thought to his god, and all the way into his heart, he wished that the Alfather would listen to him and leave the battlefield, before the wolf could get him. Before he died.
Run away from the wolf, Ragnar thought, and as if all the powers in the nine worlds were bestowed upon Ragnar, his god listened.