FJ
Death surrounds Fenrisson, Ever the Man. The bodies of his best warriors—his kin—lie across the meadow between the village and the lake. Many of the slain are wolves he trained with under his father. All dead. Their human bodies—burnt husks, now—strewn across the field.
Pride demands he avenge the fallen. However, good sense tells him what he must do instead. He’s already called back his remaining warriors, bid them run to the mountains and leave their village to the serpent beasts.
Still, guilt shadows his every step as he silently skirts the forest line, managing to avoid detection. There are only two serpent warriors left now. After four did fall, many of them shifted into their human forms and took up arrows, which they must have planted before beginning the battle. Now with their numbers thinned, they have left only two of their rank in serpent-form to do all the fighting while the remainder shoots silver tipped arrows into the furred bodies of Fenrisson’s kith and kin.
These are clever beasts indeed. Fenrisson curses them silently as his eyes frantically search the meadow-turned-battlefield for his sister’s wolf—or even worse—her body.
Please not her body. He sends a prayer up to the old gods and the new one his mother convinced his father to worship, praying Myrna is still among the living.
The Gotar King’s sword in his hand feels heavier than it ever has before as he scans the meadow. Aside from a handful of his wolves, he sees no sign of his sister.
The sound of running footsteps startles him and he raises his sword expecting another attack. However his eyes narrow when he spies not a warrior garbed in a leather jerkin and pants, but a naked man—one of the serpent warriors— sprinting towards him from across the field with nothing but a large quiver of arrows across his back. It is one of the archers, he soon realizes, likely responsible for helping in the slaughter of his wolves.
Fenrisson once again raises his sword, but then he sees the soldier is not headed for him at all, but toward the forest behind him. In fact, the man’s face is filled with panic as he flees…
Fenrisson’s eyes widen when he spots a smaller red wolf at the soldier’s heels, but he cannot help but smile. It is Myrna! Instead of continuing to fight once the arrows started flying, she chose to look for the source. And apparently, she found it.
Myrna leaps at the naked archer’s back and takes him down before he can find hidden refuge among the trees. And though he and Myrna share no special bond as he and Olafr do, Fenrisson does still feel her triumphant satisfaction as if it is his own when the serpent-turned-man falls. He watches with his own teeth bared as Myrna ends the archer’s life in a fierce cacophony of furious growling and ripping.
For a brief moment, hope surges within his chest. Perhaps he sent Olafr away too hastily.
But his hope instantly drops like a stone when he looks in the direction from whence Myrna and the archer came. There are five more naked archers sprinting towards them, and one has an arrow notched and aimed at his sister.
“Myrna!” he yells.
But it is too late. Her wolf lets out a sharp yelp as the silver-tipped arrow grazes hard over her back, only just missing her head before lodging with an audible thunk in the semi-frozen ground below.
Fenrisson has no time to feel relief. He can smell the scent of his sister’s burnt flesh, and he knows her pain is great when she lets out cry and shifts before his eyes, her human mouth rimmed with the enemy’s blood.
“Myrna!”
“FJ?” Her voice is hoarse with pain.
Fenrisson peers beyond his sister to track the archers only to find one of the beasts upon the field is no longer fighting. Not simply because the wolves have withdrawn, but also because he now seems more interested in Myrna and Fenrisson than spraying more flame upon the fleeing Vikings.
The serpent’s size is great and he is dark blue with golden eyes, much like the one Fenrisson did slay. A father or a brother perhaps?
Fenrisson does not realize the accuracy of his guess until the beast is fully turned around and headed toward he and his sister along with the archers. But at a much faster killing speed.
He picks his sister up, cradling her in his arms. And then he runs for cover into the nearby trees. It seems a cowardly act for sure. Especially for Fenrisson, who like most Vikings, wished to die either of old age or in battle.
But he must run now. In order to keep his vow to his brother, he must survive. And as little as he has ever wanted a mate, much less a fated one, he knows now he must locate the she-wolf with whom he’ll spend the rest of his life.
For he can see clearly that his Aunt Bera was correct. The future of his North Wolves depends upon it.