{"sf1_id":1715906,"sf2_id":"qmyKXv1B","title":"Ragnarok - VIII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":2418,"posted_at":"2021-05-08T16:10:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1715906-ragnarok-viii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/qmyKXv1B","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/29/db/29dba00a-11cd-4379-b316-205071dd4e56","description":"#9 of Ragnarok\n\nAfter a night of strange and cryptic dreams, Shane arises to see, and fight, the Soot for himself.\nThis canto is how I know my dad, a literature professor, was lying when he said he read these when I was first writing them. Because he was deeply paranoid about my doing or being anything anywhere close to gay, and if he'd seen the bit at the beginning, where the narrative voice goes all Male Gaze all over Varr and his bare-chestedness, there would have been A Long Discussion. And there wasn't.","content":"The dawn above the east was solid light\n\nFrom edge to edge. If all the sky were one\n\nPiece of soft paper, dipped into a cup\n\nOf melted luminescence, that light crept\n\nUp it by capillary tug, spread out\n\nNeon infection through the fiber sheet,\n\nJust so that sky would look. Or like a pane\n\nOf plastic, counterfeiting glass, but grown\n\nOpaque with years of sunburn, now exposed\n\nTo searchlights blazing it to noonday bright.\n\nThe trees stood still in slumber, for the sun\n\nWas unarrived. Between their net of limbs,\n\nTheir lattice of dark boughs and dying leaves\n\nWhose colors, backlit, all had sunk into\n\nStark, same, dramatic black, fluorescent dawn\n\nPoured through the holes that flexed in size and shape\n\nAs waking breeze rolled through them toward the plains.\n\nWhile Shane arose, and stretched himself, and dashed\n\nCold water from the ewer by the door\n\nOver his face and shoulders stiff, and shook\n\nThe water from his quilly crimson hair,\n\nVarr stood, his tunic cast aside, and let\n\nThe morning wash across his limbs. His scars\n\nGlinted like web of wires electrified\n\nWhere they reflected back the almost-dawn.\n\nHe stooped, and raised the basket, lidless now.\n\nFrom it the fireflies, emerald and jet,\n\nTheir lamps exhausted from nocturnal watch,\n\nBuzzed grumpily, to vanish in the grass\n\nSwallowed like pebbles dropped into the sea.\n\nVarr did not turn, but said, \"I almost see\n\nWhy you go nearly naked into war.\n\nWithout familiar weight of armor borne\n\nMore for long custom than precaution's sake.\n\nHow light my muscles feel, how full my lungs!\n\nThe wind upon the skin invigorates\n\nLike food and drink and sleep and prayer combined.\n\nFor you, who wear but those half-breeches soft,\n\nWhat fierce elation must a battle be!\"\n\n\"My shorts?\" Shane blinked, confused, \"That is not why\n\nI dress this way. Only within the ring\n\nShed I all else to don my trunks and gloves.\n\nElsewhere would I wear garments more like yours.\"\n\nSo saying, Shane the tunic passed to Varr\n\nWho took it, cautiously replying back\n\nLike one unsure if ground on which he treads\n\nWill bear his weight, \"You fought within a ring?\n\nWere you a gladiator, then? If so,\n\nWhy did you fight in less than otherwise?\"\n\nShane blushed, ashamed he knew not why, for all\n\nHis age undaring, dull, and paranoid.\n\n\"To keep the combat fair, I think. To keep\n\nOut subtle knives or bags of blinding sand.\n\nNo hidden weapons could there be, because\n\nThere was no place to hide them.\" Shane half-smiled\n\nFor his own explanation sounded weak.\n\nVarr frowned. He pulled his armor on again\n\nAnd said, \"Are they untrusting, then, your folk,\n\nThat even those enacting holy rites\n\nOf combat, man to man, done for the sake\n\nOf making those who grapple part divine\n\nAt least as long as confrontation lasts,\n\nAre in suspicion held so deep?\" Shane saw\n\nToo many hurdles in between the truth\n\nOf how his life and combat were, and Varr's\n\nMisunderstanding of it, so he said,\n\n\"The treacherous are ever slow to trust,\n\nAnd there are none more treacherous than those\n\nWho riches gleaned from managing our fights.\n\nBut brother, come! The morning ages fast!\n\nMy wounds are closed, and all my strength returns!\n\nThat life is past, and this yet lies before!\n\nMy heart reproaches me, so I must go\n\nAnd answer the insult I gave myself\n\nBy shrinking from a battle yester-night!\"\n\nVarr grimly smiled, and buckled on his sword,\n\nSaying, \"Fret not. Our enemy has blazed\n\nAs clear a trail as any pathfinder.\"\n\nUpon the threshold there lay flecks of char,\n\nAnd from the door they trailed, toward the plains\n\nWhere withered grass joined clumps of ash still damp\n\nAll pointing to the object of Shane's wrath\n\nWhich blazed like embers smoldering but touched\n\nBy oxygen when he beheld the trace.\n\n\"You are courageous, Champion,\" said Varr\n\nHis voice constrained by deadly quiet thrill,\n\n\"Now show your brother warrior if your speed\n\nAnd stamina are proportioned the same.\"\n\n\"Fear not for me,\" laughed Shane, and beat his gloves\n\nTogether, \"Rather have a care that I\n\nWill get so far ahead that naught remains\n\nFor you!\" Then they were running side by side\n\nAcross the plains, so swiftly that the waves\n\nOf wind among the grass kept pace with them.\n\nAll dreams evaporated from his mind,\n\nAll thoughts of Sulfur names that he knew not,\n\nAll care for cagey clues in riddles couched\n\nBy barely there Old Women and Old Men,\n\nAll worries after if he was alive,\n\nFor Shane had never felt half so alive\n\nAs he felt now. The grass around his feet\n\nLike breakers splintering beneath the prow\n\nOf a dreadnaught, majestic, triple decked\n\nAnd triple masted, built of iron-tough wood\n\nBy surf and sunlight burnished to far more\n\nWarm brilliance of hue than it could have\n\nAlive and growing in some distant glade,\n\nThat grips as does a cavalier his horse--\n\nLoose, lightly, lovingly, yet with all strength--\n\nThe raptured and relentless ocean air\n\nWith white seraphic wings, a dozen piled\n\nInto the sky like cumulonimbus,\n\nWas split, and flowed like fluid to each side\n\nTo surge together after he had passed.\n\nThe dew was scattered outward in their wake.\n\nEach drop of it that from the whiplashed blades\n\nOf grass flew sideways, shattered, and released\n\nThe smell of morn, of water, and of cold\n\nWhich rose around them, an incense in haste,\n\nTo cool their sweat and hold off weariness.\n\nBefore them stretched the leavings of the Soot:\n\nAsh smeared, grass shriveled, caustic footprints set\n\nWith needless violence deep into the soil,\n\nMore obvious than is a comet tail\n\nDrawn pale across the black and velvet night\n\nThat points unerringly to source and sun\n\nThough one is small and one invisible.\n\nThey followed it like dolphins in the train\n\nOf the undead illumination raised\n\nBy heavy ship's propellers. As the trail\n\nOf light unholy in the water dark\n\nLeads to the leaden behemoth, this trail\n\nOf dark unholy in the morning light\n\nGrew tantalizing, promising a fight.\n\nAtop a bluff Varr paused. \"Catch here your breath,\"\n\nHe said. \"No need of that,\" said Shane, \"I have\n\nEnough to carry on for miles still, and\n\nEnough to blow our friend away, as well!\"\n\nVarr squinted at the distance, where the hunt\n\nWould end. He saw their quarry shuffling off\n\nMore grime into the grass. He saw the trail\n\nConnecting them to it unbroken; poised\n\nTo bring the two together with great noise\n\nLike copper wire between two batteries.\n\nBut he saw other shapes. Some in dismay\n\nWith old women and children burdened down,\n\nWith poverty and sickness throttled up,\n\nWith bundles and with great extremity\n\nFled forward toward a tiny thread of stream\n\nAnd then to the horizon. Others joined\n\nThe one that Shane and Varr had followed, in\n\nPursuit relentless, each one at the head\n\nOf its own trail of charcoal sludge. \"Our friend,\"\n\nSaid Varr, \"has found friends of his own.\n\nAnd they are hunting also. If we wish\n\nTo spare these folk destruction, we must go-\"\n\nHe finished not his sentence. Shane was up\n\nAnd running, crying as he went \"Cowards!\n\nYou stalk in darkness, only face the weak,\n\nYou will fall at a single blow! Face me!\n\nIf this be the first time that you confront\n\nOne able to strike back, I promise you\n\nI will make it the last as well!\" Shane tore\n\nAcross the plain, Varr half a step behind\n\nAnd at his voice of thunder, the Soot turned,\n\nRegarding him with unexpressing eyes.\n\nIf they were waiting for a further call\n\nOr challenge from him, they were foolish. Shane\n\nStraight at the nearest flung himself, and hit\n\nWith all his might of muscle and of rage\n\nFull in its missing face. Backward it snapped\n\nAnd toppled, while the filthy, skull shaped head\n\nBy boxing glove divorced from body, smashed\n\nUpon the ground like fragile fallen glass.\n\nAs jackals, scavenging on southron plains\n\nOut from their salt wastes venture to the kills\n\nOf lions, stand and hesitate around\n\nReluctant to advance enough to steal\n\nAnd too afraid to trust their numbers, while\n\nThe regal beast arises in his might.\n\nSo did the Soot hang back in hate and doubt\n\nWhile Varr unsheathed his sword and took his place,\n\nWhile Shane his shoulders rolled and popped his neck,\n\nWhile the intended victims reached the bank,\n\nWhile Shane said \"See? I warned you, if you fell\n\nToo far behind, I'd beat them all myself.\n\nAlready, brother, I'm ahead by one!\"\n\nAn age they seemed prepared to stand: the Soot\n\nIn attitude of menace, the boxer\n\nDefiant and cocksure, the warrior grave.\n\nYet, as even hard glass cannot remain\n\nForever perpendicular, but flows\n\nAfter a century, until it breaks\n\nOf its own weight, the Soot burned through their fear\n\nTo their hot core of rage and ageless hate\n\nAnd hissing in their hearts, lifted their blades.\n\nThe first sword sought the boxer, clothed in rust\n\nFrom bitter tip before to hilt behind,\n\nLike bolt or javelin aimed, to spit him through\n\nFrom chest to back as swift as arrowflight\n\nIn thought before the archer pulls the string.\n\nThe warrior's blade was swifter still. As does\n\nThe blackbird stooping on the massy hawk\n\nTo drive him from her nest as yet unseen\n\nWith lesser strength and duller claws made more\n\nFormidable by recklessness than three\n\nHundred hawks, or the missile meant to halt\n\nAnother's flight with its own, held in check;\n\nThe decades-dormant bullet loosed aloft\n\nAt last to intercept some falling death\n\nOf fire and brimstone cast across the seas\n\nSo massive it is weighed in megatons,\n\nVarr caught the Soot right-angled, crossed his blade\n\nEdgewise above the hilt, that its own charge\n\nDrove it upon the sword, to split and sprawl\n\nBeside the comrade foul it avenged not.\n\nThe third with halberd ancient came at Varr\n\nTip raised like standard high, to leverage weight\n\nTo double speed enough to split his shield.\n\nBut when he drew near, he was knocked aside\n\nBy Shane's hard shoulder, and shoved to the grass\n\nThere by both gloves atop eachother crushed\n\nLike tiny fleck of gravel caught between\n\nThe hammer and the anvil. Ere there was\n\nA moment large enough to breathe, a fourth\n\nHissingly hurled its self and swords--chipped down\n\nTo their iron vertebrae--between the two.\n\nLike the philosopher's ass, who cannot\n\nChoose which grass sweeter is, the Soot froze there\n\nBetween the two it hated, where it stayed\n\nJust long enough to blink, had it but eyes,\n\nJust long enough for Shane to twist and strike,\n\nJust long enough for Varr to bounce it back\n\nWith his shield boss, for Shane to ricochet\n\nThe revenant again with all the force\n\nOf shoulder, chest, and arm. Just long enough\n\nFor Varr to swing with hand supporting hand\n\nAnd cleave the Soot in two across the waist.\n\nJust long enough it tumbled through the air,\n\nHalf this way, half the other, for two more\n\nBlack ashy shades to stumble hissing close\n\nEnough to strike. Their blades they raised on high,\n\nAnd under them came Varr the Last-to-Flee\n\nBehind him followed Shane the Champion.\n\nThe warrior's blade wrenched heavenward. The glove\n\nShot uppercutting rocketlike. One Soot\n\nWas cloven from the rotten navel up,\n\nThe other's neck was snapped, as does a gust\n\nOf sudden wind do to a rotten bough,\n\nAnd neither fatal blow had landed first.\n\n\"Your pardon must I beg, oh Champion,\"\n\nSaid Varr, \"For of your prowess little use.\n\nFor poor opponents, little more than stocks\n\nMade by the sunlight nigh unfit to slay.\"\n\n\"Not so, Last-to-Flee,\" Shane growled, \"I scorn not\n\nThe entertainment you've arranged for me.\"\n\nHe beat his gloves together on his chest,\n\nAnd said, \"I only wish it not so soon\n\nCompleted!\" For the final Soot remained\n\nHeld only by its helplessness to flee\n\nUnder the rising sun. Instead it turned\n\nWith thrashing sword and shuffled toward the folk\n\nUpon the river's edge. Came Shane and Varr\n\nAll pride forgotten, as do those in flight\n\nOut of a house aflame. They passed it by\n\nOn either side, and struck it glancing blows\n\nThen skidded to a stop between the thing\n\nAnd those it had pursued, as if to form\n\nA gate between them, unseen but locked fast.\n\nThey stood triangulated: Varr,\n\nTo his right Shane, and to his right the foe.\n\nWith empty eyes it watched them, with its sword\n\nTrailing among the tangled grass, twitching\n\nIn frustration, in anger, and in dread,\n\nAnd staining it with rust. Perhaps it felt\n\nThe fear of earlier now magnified\n\nSixfold by its six comrades beaten down.\n\nPerhaps it knew too well the odds, and held\n\nBack from a skirmish it must lose, as those\n\nWhose souls are not worth keeping grasp them tight\n\nAnd will not risk the touch of any thing--\n\nA sea, a sky, a song, a god, a love--\n\nUpon them. Or perhaps it thought the sun\n\nWhose light bewilders all such dwimmer-things\n\nHad come down from the sky to torment it\n\nIn person of these two, with sword and fist.\n\nPerhaps it thought and felt naught but dull hate.\n\nThe dark ash mannequin advanced one step,\n\nVarr raised his blade to stab as on it came.\n\nShane shuffled sideways, struck once. It was knocked\n\nDirectly on Varr's sword up to the hilt\n\nLike a dried hornet mounted on a pin.\n\nThe air was cleared of hissing, and was still.\n\nThe boxer and the warrior crossed long sword\n\nWith heavy glove. They struck backhanded fist\n\nTo flat of blade with sound like breaking light\n\nThrough lead-hued clouds split suddenly, and their\n\nHuzzahs were taken up by those who stood\n\nJust on the riverbank, as sunlight pools\n\nOn sun's right hand and left in prismed shades\n\nAnd makes two other suns. Shane caught the scent\n\nOf victory long left behind, on cheers\n\nFor him, on hot adrenaline draining\n\nFrom veins that needed it no more, on taste\n\nOf elation he almost had forgot.\n\nAnd with remembered joy came other things\n\nNot taken with him: eyes that watched him fight,\n\nA voice that soothed his pain, and hands that held\n\nMore in defeat than triumph. Shane was seized\n\nWith more than curiosity this time\n\nTo know if he yet lived. His ears seemed blocked\n\nAnd his throat burned as if he swallowed ice\n\nThough all around him morning warmed the earth\n\nAnd wiped the final dewdrops from the turf.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1715507-ragnarok-vii.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1716344-ragnarok-ix.json"}}