* Selection
Bray ducked under and around parts of the wooden houses in his settlement as he rushed to the gathering. He was eighteen, and having spent his entire life there, he knew every inch of the way. He lifted himself up on a roofing post, vaulting himself over a short fence, thankful for the dry ground today, as weaving and jumping between houses was nowhere near as much fun in the wet.
Rushing around a corner into a more heavily used path, he was forced to slow his pace as he joined up with others headed to the gathering. It had been a good spring harvest, so everyone was jovial, even on this somber of days. "Here, here. Gather round." The voice was from thecentral square ahead of him.
When he reached it, the crowd was already thick, everyone jockeying for a view of the elder speaking. Bray immediately recognized the voice as Gail's. Grandpa Gail they called him sometimes. He had to be in his seventies, a few decades older than most men lived out in the open forest towns. He had seen so many come and go that the whole town treated him like their father. "Quiet down now. Quiet down. I know this is not our favorite of days, but it's our duty to be done none the less."
Bray still couldn't see him. Rather than try to force his way through like everyone else, he backed off. He found a wooden signpost, and a moment later had vaulted and swung himself into a position sitting on top of it. It was a rare talent of his. Being light and agile, he could scale to the top of almost anything with his bare hands and feet. Too bad that skill wasn't useful for much except thieving. He envied the stronger, studier boys who were destined to honorable ends as soliders, or even blacksmiths. At least now he could see old gramps.
"The decade is upon us, which means it is time for one of us to make the sacrifice. To perform his duty in maintaining our honored peace with the Norsemen. You will do what an army of soliders can not, staving off the great giants of the northern woods. Whomever should be selected, every one of us thanks you with our greatest of gratitude." The crowd let out a murmur of agreement, and Grandpa Gail slowly hobbled his way to the selection cask.
He stuck his hand inside, and shuffled it around. Everyone knew what the cask contained. The name of every eligible young man in the settlement, scribbled out on a scrap of parchment. The large size of the cask and his delay in picking made it seem like there could have been hundreds of names in there. However, Bray knew there were only a dozen or so, his among them. The frail old man finally made his selection, as he thrust his hand high up into the air. "We have a savior!"
The crowd hushed, and he brought the name down into view for him to read it. "Our savior will be..." It took quite some time, his face contorting and squinting, looking away in consternation, then squinting again. He was an old man, it's likely he could barely read the names scribbed there. "Our savior will be...." His eyes began scanning the crowd, presumably looking for the young man who's fortune would be honored if not long lived. All the candidates were sure to be present, as the great honor of being selected would quikly be turned to shame and disgrace if he were absent.
From all the way in the back, Bray couldn't really see where he was looking as he extended his scrawny aged arm and finger to point towards the crowd, but he heard the name a moment later. "Our savior will be Bray Hunternam!" Bray went deaf and numb as the words sank in. He could hardly hear the whole crowd roar in cheer as Gail waved the little scrap of paper over his head. People were turning their heads about trying to see where Gail had been pointing. A few nearby had already spotted him perched ontop of the signpost, which was quite a lucky break as he nearly fainted, lost his footing and fell into their arms.
"Bray. Bray. Bray. Bray." A moment later he could hear only the chanting of his name as he was carried and passed through hundreds of hands on his way to the stage. He simultaneously felt like his skin was trying to crawl off him and his lunch was trying to find it's way back out into the world. His legs nearly gave out when his feet hit the ground next to Grandpa Gail and the other elders. Gail grabbed his wrist with an unexpectedly firm grip, thrusting it over his head to elicit another cheer from the crowd. Then the whole crowd chanted together. "Bray Hunternam, the savior of us all." Then he fainted.
* Tradition Tradition
After the ceremony, the elders gathered as always to discuss preparations for that evening's event. Linder, one of the youngest elders, spoke up with his typical irreverence. "Why do we continue this folly, decade after decade? It merely shows our weakness. It's been what, fifty years since the war with the Norsemen? Our weapons and armor are much improved since then. With our fine steel swords and tin plate we have conquered the beasts of the forest. I say we fight. I say we take back our right to our children." Nobody enjoyed the sacrifice, and the other elders in the room were obviously considering his words carefully."
"We certainly could fight. We could." Gail stood at the other end of the room, making his way slowly towards Linder, hobbling on his cane. "You're right that our weapons are much improved. However, my boy, you were not here for the war, you did not see it. Let me briefly remind you what you would be up against." He stopped midway, centrally addressing the participants. "The Norse are not merely a beast of the woods. They are men, cunning and smart like we are. If our scouts are correct, their weapons are still crude, but they need no more. Each Norsemen is two men taller than every one of you." Gail turned and scanned the group, making a point to make eye contact with each one of them.
Gail continued towards Linder, shaking his clenched hand. "Each one of their fists is the size of a gunderbird. You've seen them only in the dark and shadows of the sacrifice, but I was there. I survived that fateful day. Their army was less than a dozen of their young men, not unlike our candidates. After they dispatched our army, they started in on sacking the town.
Two of them ripped the roof off my house like it was on a hinge. I was only a young boy, hiding under a pile of dirty linens. However, my mother and father stood proudly, as you do, thinking they would defend their home and their son. Those two wielded no weapons, but they scarcely needed any. The walls of our house were barely up to their knees. They picked up my mother and father in their bare hands, hoisting them out of the open roof as I watched in horror. They seemed to be having fun prodding and poking at them as if for sport, until the one holding my father must have pushed too hard. He screamed out in pain, and then my mother started screaming too. As my father fell, I could see blood running down his chin and chest before he even hit the ground. The other one had torn my mothers clothing open, and they seemed to be arguing with each other. I couldn't bear to watch anymore. I buried my head into the ground and prayed for it to stop. I never saw my mother again."
Gail set his hands on the table, bringing his face very close to Linder. "So you may fight, and you may even win. However, you better be sure. Because if you don't, that story will be the story of your son. That fate will be your fate. Our fate." The room started murmuring behind him. This wasn't the first time someone wanted to fight, and it wasn't the first time Gail had delivered that speech. The rest of the elders would never side with Linder, the risks were simply too great.
Gail reached into his pocket, grabbing the slip of paper from the selection ceremony. He moved closer still to Linder, and whispered to him. "Be thankful Linder. Thank the savior that he may save us all. Especially your family, your son." He forced the crumpled scrap of paper into Linder's hand, knowing full well that the scap of paper contained not Gail's name, but the name Ebon. Linder's son. He still wasn't sure he'd made the right choice, but Ebon was one of their strongest young warriors. If it ever did come to a fight with the Norse, they would need him. Gail, well, he'd only be useful if they needed to steal some bread from a neighboring town.
* Goodbyes
When Bray had come to, he was in a back room of the town hall, a rare hot if not very clear bath drawn and waiting for him. As if a few hours of pampering was going to make it easier to be sent to certain death. Yet there was no solitude to be had, as the moment he slipped into the wooden tub, guests began barging into the back room.
First the town elders had come, thanking him for his sacrifice, reciting a bunch of rhetoric about how honored this would make his family. Then some of the prettier young girls had come to visit. Girls who had never paid attention to him, not for a lack of trying on his part, came and delivered a very unearnest visit, as if they had been put up to it. Still, they were pretty, and he had been glad the soap and soot accumulated in the water provided him some measure of modest privacy.
His current visitor, his mother, was bauling in front of him. "It's okay mother. Really." Was he that eager to rush to his own death? No, but the harder she cried, the more he felt he should be strong. "Mother, think how much good I can do for the settlement. You know I'm no good as a warrior, or blacksmith, or even a sower. My best trick is climbing the tallest tree. What good is that to you and little sis? If this is my duty, than this it must be." He borrowed some words from the elder's speech to him, yet the more he spoke, the harder the lies of honor were to believe.
He really just wanted her to leave. It would be easier. She finally wrestled control of her sobs and looked up at him. "Bray my son." Well, mostly in control. She let out a small whimper. "You are so incredibly brave. So so incredibly brave." She took his head in her hands, kissed it, and spoke the crowd's recital, as if it would make her feel better about his death, "Bray Hunternam, the savior of us all." She kissed him one last time and ran form the room weeping.
* Sacrifice
Bray didn't know how long the drums had been thumping when he awoke. He couldn't remember the last time he was treated to a long afternoon nap or a proper bed. The room was lit with candles, and he realized someone was standing at the door waiting for him. That must have been what woke him. "Bray, they're ready for you." It was a younger boy. Clifton, or maybe Jax. He wasn't sure what his name was. Bray stumbled up out of bed, already dressed in the finest clothing he had ever worn. Brown leather pants and a white sewn tunic.
Outside he could see the entire town was already gathered. A path parted for him as soon as they saw him coming. He didn't think so many in the town even recognized him, but then again, they probably hadn't before this afternoon. The cleanly washed white was probably also a dead giveaway that he was the lucky Norsemen food of the evening. Would they eat him? His situation was suddenly no longer an abstract death, but one that was very real and coming soon. He could feel the pounding in his chest.
At the front of the crowd, they had built the ceremonial offering rack, a huge fire raging behind it. It was a wooden structure a little taller than a house, with a thin ladder leading up to a slanted wood surface. The opening in the crowd had led him right to the base of it, and two hooded men at the bottom gestured him towards the ladder.
He took his time climbing it so as not to outpace the hooded men. It seemed the ceremonial thing to do. He could have been up at the top in a blink, and vaulting off the far side in another. Was he thinking of running? It hadn't occurred to him until just then. Before he had time to fully consider it, he was sitting on the platform and the hooded men were slipping loops over his legs. He laughed to himself, deciding he wasn't even good at chickening out. This was a fitting fate for him then. The men slipped similar loops over his hands. The straps were not enough to tie him down. There was an entire crowd below to assure he wasn't running anywhere. They were just to make sure he didn't fall off the platform when he saw the giant Norsemen for the first time.
After the hooded men left the platform his chest stopped pounding. The night sky was beautiful. The flickering of the firelight against the trees and the chanting and drumming were soothing. He laid his head against the rough wood for a moment of peace. Then he heard the horn blast and everything went silent. Hundreds gathered below him, and for a few moments the only sound he could hear was the flickering of the bonfire.
Then distant rustling in the forest. Trees and leaves rushing about as if in a wind storm. And some splintering of wood, like a tree falling. The platform made it sound like it was coming from all around him, and the starts of the night sky and flickering firelight prevented him from seeing deeply into the forest. The crowd below him remained entirely silent. Then a moment later, he saw a form moving between the trees. It was huge.
He estimated the platform he lie on to be two almost two men high, yet the form in the forest was even taller. Most of the crowd had seen a Norsemen once or twice from past sacrifices, but he was in shock. He remembered clearly a decade ago, and the camping trip he was on. Chasing frogs in the day and telling ghost stories at night. He was told nothing of the sacrifice until he was fifteen, almost the eligible age.
As the giant Norsemen neared, Bray had little to do but stare at his destiny. The warrior was clad in wooden armor planks that vaguely resembled the walls of a house or the flat of a table. His face was covered in a similar planked wooden helm, leaving slits for eyes and mouth that caught the light and made him seem even more the menacing monster. The warrior pushed and snapped large branches out of the way closing the final distance to the platform.
Bray almost laughed at the absurdity of it. For more than a year his parents had pushed him to make something of himself, and now, fate had intervened. When the warrior reached him, he could see the grain in the giant's wooden armor. He was probably a man taller than the platform, with shoulders notably wider.
He caught a glimpse of the warrior's eyes in the flickering firelight before he turned and looked down at the crowd, a strangly wavering gruff voice spoke, "Human dwellers in the Norselands. For fifty years we have kept the peace and allowed you to live in our lands, eat our wild forest animals, and grow food in our soil. As a reminder of our great war and a token of your patronage, we ask only that you sacrifice one male of age every one hundred moons." The warrior paused, and Bray noticed him looking over at him briefly. "Name your sacrifice. Who is this brave hero, sacrificing himself so the rest of you may live."
The whole crowd chanted out in unison. "Bray Hunternam, the savior of us all. Bray. Bray. Bray. Bray." The chanting of his voice slowly faded as members of the crowd each decided they had honored him enough. The warrior withdrew a massive sword. A sword the likes of which Bray had never seen. It was not remarkable for it's craftmanship, for it was speckled and uneven, and it probably held little edge. However, it was absolutely huge. Easily half again longer than Bray was tall, he wondered if any man in his village could even lift it. The warrior held the sword to the side, pointed at Bray, and he closed his eyes. This was to be the end then. He hadn't even said anything. It felt so cold, so wrong, to die just lying on a platform. Mute.
He heard a scraping against the wood platform to his left, and braced for the pain of a blade. The sound traveled up, closer to his ear, louder, but the pain never came. Then he felt a tug at his wrist. Once, then again. He could feel a rough cold blade rubbing and bumping against his arm. He opened his eyes and looked over, startling himself by staring point-end at the huge sword as it hacked awkwardly at the strap on his left wrist. Was this his life then? A comedy of delays and awkward moments before death? The blunt blade probably couldn't cut a bundle of twine. He slipped his hand out of the wrist hold, careful not to make any sudden movements as he showed that it was free.
The warrior stared down at him, and he again saw eyes lit by the flickering light, still menacing behind the wooden mask. He wondered if he would flay him on the spot for making him look the fool, but then figured nobody down below could see the silly wrist strap anyhow. Wordlessly then, they conspired. The warrior slipped the sword up to each strap, mocking a single slice, and Bray slipped the corresponding limb free. Bray wondered if he simply had never found his place because he didn't belong in a forest village. He enjoyed the drama of the ceremony, he played his part well.
As he contemplated a life he would never have, the warrior sheathed his sword and reached out for him. He felt thick warm fingers digging into his back, and then a grip, impossibly firm, picking his body up off the platform. The warrior lifted him higher, giving him an unusually high vantage point and a bit of fear of falling. He was looking down at the top of the wooden helm and shoulder planks when the wavering gruff voice boomed out again, "so shall the peace continue." The crowd below them roared, amidst them a few again chanting his name.
The warrior turned side to side, displaying him for a crowd he could not see, and then brought him down, roughly slapping him onto the rough wooden shoulder planks. It almost knocked the wind out of him, and he clamored for something to hold onto as down the warrior's back he saw the ground calling far below. He almost laughed again at himself, clamoring for life on the even of his death. The warrior turned, and as he walked into the forest, slung over his shoulder Bray was offered the last view of his home he would ever see.
* Insolence
Bray realized he must have fallen asleep, as he startled awake, shocked at his surroundings. Cold; hard; his chest aching and brused, and darkness, his eyes taking a moment to register the forest mat moving by more than two man heights below him. He almost thought he was falling, until his wits returned, and he recognized the backside of the warrior who had slung him over a shoulder and was carrying him to mother knows where.
As his eyes adjusted, he started to make out details he hadn't seen or noticed before. As the warrior's legs strided, he could see they were bare, the armor shaped into a kilt of flat planks around the waist. It was much like his own village's tin armor designs, though melding a piece of tin as big as those planks would require a forge bigger than any he had ever seen. He noticed a good amount of the wooden brushing and clacking noise he heard was actually from those wooden armor planks rubbing and slapping against each other. The huge sword was not sheathed, but dangling in the open, held by some kind of loop. An asset then that the blade was not entirely sharp. It reminded him of their coordination back at the ceremony, and for a fleeting moment he forgot he was a dead captor.
"That blade would cut better if it had an edge. Might keep you from having to hack away at your next," he was lost as to what to call it, "collection." The warrior merely grunted back at him, and not a very pleasant sounding grunt. Bray was silent for a few more seconds, but he was wide awake, and getting entirely bored. A long afternoon and evening of nothing but napping making him alert and impetuous. "So what's your plan? Cart me through the woods until I die of boredom?" The continued rhythmic crunching of footsteps was the only response.
He was suddenly aware that the warriors hand was still holding him, as he felt a painful jab in his side and pressure squeezing him uncomfortably against the wooden armor planks. "Arrrrr," the pain and pressure hurt and made it hard for him to breathe. "Alright, alright, not much of a talker I see." The grip lightened up.
* Ghost Stories
Ebon held his face close to the fire to light it ominously from the bottom. A cheap attempt to look more sinister during his storytelling. "After they string you up and turn your insides out, they drop you into a boiling pot and eat you. RIght now, Bray is probably being gutted by that same huge sword we saw cutting him free. Stab, into his navel. Then sawing rough uneven strokes up his body." Ebon made a sawing motion with his hand against his tummy as he weaved his story.
The girls winced and cried in disgust and sympathy. The campfire was surrounded several of the lucky unchosen candidates, and the girls of the same age. Several of them who had visited Bray earlier that evening. It was a ritual of sorts. Families were wary to wed their daughters to young men who might be sent off to die, so the night of the selection was a courting of sorts. Young boys and girls with libidos charged and unsatisfied high on the relief of having not been picked, or their favorite boy having not been picked. None of the girls were morning Bray this evening. They were all elated, ripe, and showing it. More than one of them had eyes for Ebon, the strongest and most charismatic of the candidates.
Desperate to wrestle the attention of the ladies away from Ebon, another boy, Connor, took his opening. "Don't let him scare you girls. That's not what happens at all. Last night I overheard our scouts talking. The ones that followed the last sacrifice. They apparently saw exactly what happened." He motioned the girls close, shunning his voice to a whisper to draw them in. "They carried him all the way back to their clan. They bathed him, and clothed him for seven days and nights." His voice was barely audible now, and so his loud punctuation shocked them, "then they fed him to the Kaina Wolves!" They fell back away from him, one of them falling clean over onto her bum, as the boys and even some of the girls laughed.
The boisterous atmosphere around the fire came to a screeching halt when Linder peeked into the hovel to check on them. "Everyone behaving in here?" The adolescents straightened themselves, and a couple of the girls adjusted their posture to try and hide how much cleavage their loosened bodices were were tempting and teasing the boys with. "Good. Have your fun tonight, but honor the name of the savior. Bray Hunternam,"
The children all repeated the chant in respect, "the savior of us all." As Linder retreated, they all sat silently around the fire, none willing to continue their disgrace of the young boy who had only hours ago given his own life to save them all from the Norsemen. It set a somber moment into all of them. Girls and boys alike looked across at each other wordlessly, asking, telling, flirting. That is until the busty girl Amber leaned in close to Ebon, and he went in for a kiss, dragging her to the floor in the process. That set the rest of them back to laughing and flirting with each other around the firelight.
* End of the Charade
Bray had never begged for sleep so much in his life, but it just wouldn't come. He had memorized his view of the warrior's back-plank, and even the strong yet oddly unhairy legs. It made him wonder just how old this warrior was. Was it possible the warrior was even younger than he? Bray was not exactly the most masculine among the adolescent boys at his settlement, perhaps he had more in common with this giant than they realized. His tongue slipped again. "Is my death going to be a private or public affair?" The continued crunching of feet on the forest floor and clacking of armor was the only response. "I would just like to, you know, mentally prepare."
Suddenly the warrior stopped walking. The grip of huge fingers grew tight around his chest and he wondered if perhaps he had erred in judgement. It hurt so much he thought he might be squeezed to death, popping like a grape. Then he was off the shoulder, and headed for the ground. The warrior was kneeling down, and he thought he was going to slam down hard before his captor slowed him at the last moment. Still as the huge hands retreated, he bumped to the ground rather awkwardly, a sharp piece of dry kindling sticking him in the side.
Next thing he knew, that huge sword was drawn, the point, if you could call something so dull a point, laid onto his chest. The warrior spoke, the grovely voice sounding even stranger now that Bray had the clarity to pay attention to it, "another word, and I'll end you right here and now." That last syllable seemed to break into a high note, as if the warrior was holding in a laugh or holding in bowels that needed to be relieved.
Bray was bored, and in no mood for threats on a life that he'd already resigned was already forfeit. "Or I can be quiet, and you'll just end me somewhere else? I don't see the difference." He saw the warrior tense up, the sword pulsing on his chest, but the death blow didn't come. Ever since this afternoon, falling from the signpost, this whole thing seemed surreal. A life with no consequences. He egged on, "might as well get on with it."
This time the sword pressed into his chest painfully. If it had anything resembling an edge anywhere, it likely might have cut him. Then Bray's head began to ring with pain as the warrior let out a shreik of frustration as amplified as his height. Bray instinctively covered his ears, yet it did nothing to deaden the sound. He felt like he was going to pass out form just that. Then he realized the warrior was no longer staring him down. The huge sword was resting on his chest, unweilded.
After several shakes of his head, Bray resolved that it might take a while for the ringing to stop, and he set onto the sword on his chest. He lifted with all his strength, careful to be sure he had a firm grip on the tip of it before he swung it over his head and onto the ground. He doubted he could have lifted much more than the very end of it, as even that required great effort.
By the time Bray sat up, the ringing in his ears had subsided enough to hear gruff murmuring and the sound of wood clacking together. He turned towards the warrior and in the dim light saw a pile of wooden planks taller than he was. It was the warrior's armor, dropped to the ground. Bray squinted into the darkness beyond, barely making out one of the warrior's legs before a swinging foot crashed through the wooden armor. He stumbled back, shocked and afraid of being caught in the next swing. In the process he lost his footing and fell painfully to the ground.
From the ground, Bray realized suddenly what should have been obvious. The strange voice, the smooth legs. This warrior, his captor, was not a man but a woman. No, not a woman, a young, stunningly giant girl, no older than himself! Without the armor, without the menacing wooden helm, for the first time Bray looked up and saw a person. She was left in a traditional Norsemen tunic, gathered at the waist to form a skirtish kilt. The tunic was covered in a criss-cross leather harness to which her armor plates must have been attached.
She finally looked down towards him. She looked calm, as if she had spent some of her rage smashing her armor across the forest floor. Bray, stared up form the ground at a giant girl more attractive than any he could remember. He was partially thankful for the darkness, as the view up from under her would have been even more provocative in the daylight. He needed to think clearly if he was to stay alive. There was a chance then? A hope? His running tongue jumped at the opening and yelled up to her, "hey, you're a girl."
If she heard him, she wasn't impressed. She knelt down towards him, giving him a chance to see more than just her legs. She was beautiful if slightly muscular, and at almost three times his size, incredibly menacing. Her dark hair was tied up in a braid, and moonlight caught the front and very feminine curve of her neck as she approached. Bray expected her to address him, to make some more demands, but she simply reached to the side, retrieving her massive sword from the ground. She dismissed him as she stood "and you are on your own." A moment later she was turned and walking into the darkness of the forest.
Bray was elated. He was alive. What he thought was to be a death sentence had turned into a drama filled night and an unusual ride through the woods. However, as he looked around at the darkness, he realized he had no idea where he was. Deep within Norse territory no doubt. Bray was a trickster, more at home on a stage or in a bar than out in the forest on his own. Not a moment later he was up on his feet calling after the Norse girl. "Wait!" He ran into the woods, following the sound of her progress through the trees, hearing her get further and further away. He yelled at the top of his lungs, "Wait! You can't just leave me here!"
Bray stumbled over something. A branch or root of some kind, and found himself face down in the dirt. Stumble or not he had no hope of catching her, as her huge legs gave her several times his stride with each step. He mustered only enough strength to yell after her, "Great! So you won't kill me, but you'll leave me in the woods to die. Brave!" Then he just shutdown. Cold. Shivering against the damp dirt. He cowered into a ball, wondering if he would make it until morning. Then he finally got what he wanted and fell asleep.