{"sf1_id":1717935,"sf2_id":"zeROvYm7","title":"Ragnarok - XIII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":2683,"posted_at":"2021-05-13T19:58:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1717935-ragnarok-xiii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/zeROvYm7","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/e6/70/e670dc86-0e55-4174-b615-30ea7eb0e850","description":"#14 of Ragnarok\n\nKlau tells his story, explaining what this place is, why it must be defended, and where the Old Man has gone.\nI don't know if this applies to the concept of Valhalla as it was understood by the actual Germanic and Nordic peoples who believed in it, because our concept of those beliefs comes from texts written my Christian writers, some of whom were writing for explicit evangelical or political goals, and who themselves likely didn't have access to any primary sources. That said, the concept of Valhalla as we have it? Is very much a Adventure Stories For Boys sort of heaven. So that's, I think, what I was trying to establish with Klau here.\nIt's also uncanny how I can absolutely, with perfect clarity, still remember exactly where I was when I came up with certain lines. The food court of Memorial City Mall in Houston. Outside a classroom at CUA in Washington DC. A terminal at Minneapolis Airport. A Pizza Hut table waiting for food to arrive. A two lane highway somewhere in southern Iowa looking at powerlines and cornfields out the window.","content":"Where once the yearly snowmelt flood had carved\n\nA narrow serpentine defile, that poured\n\nItself onto the plains until there was\n\nNo more snow left to melt, now were there walls\n\nAnd roof, rough hewn and roughly thrown into\n\nA rude, windowless, serviceable hall.\n\nNo tapestries hung there, nor trophies high,\n\nBut means and implements of war lay stacked\n\nAgainst the granite walls. Bedrolls and stores\n\nLike houses huddled covered all the floor\n\nSave where a table long enough to seat\n\nA hundred men sat empty and asleep,\n\nIts polished face dull in the little light\n\nThe iron braziers on the wall spat forth.\n\nInto the wooden throne upon the head\n\nKlau cast himself. At his right hand and left\n\nOn benches long but vacant Shane and Varr\n\nSat down to listen. \"Much that you must know,\"\n\nKlau said, \"you burn to ask. First hear my tale.\n\nSome answer it may be. There at your back,\n\nShould you hunger or thirst, is journeybread\n\nAnd small beer. More than these we do not have.\n\nYour pardon beg I for the welcome,\" Klau\n\nSmiled wearily, \"if it does not befit.\n\nThese evil days for hostcraft leave scant time.\"\n\n\"These are not days,\" said Varr, \"for any man\n\nTo stand upon his honor. Long ago\n\nWe learned to hold our tongues and utter not\n\nOur pain at wounds of body. At itches\n\nOf soul, merely, no less we can do.\" Shane\n\nPulled off his gloves, laid them on the table\n\nAcross eachother, and said but \"Tell on.\"\n\nHe warrior boy unclasped his heavy blade\n\nAnd in its scabbard laid it on the board.\n\n\"My homeland, in the places men draw breath,\n\nWas poor and paltry. My folk taciturn\n\nAnd downcast, and not given much to speech.\n\nNo heroes had we, nor no warrior kings,\n\nBut bandit lords of whom we lived in fear.\n\nThe only weapon I had ever seen\n\nWas an old sword, as long as I was tall,\n\nThat all my childhood hung above the hearth\n\nAnd never left its sheath to taste the air.\n\nMy father had no guess at whence it came,\n\nIt had always been there, for all his years.\n\nThere might it have remained, but for a day\n\nDarksome and dank under descending clouds,\n\nBacklit and broiling with fearful portents,\n\nHuddled and hushed with looming thunderhead,\n\nWhen tidings came of bandit princes, scarce\n\nAn hour before the ravagers themselves.\n\nWhat could be done but what we did? We sat\n\nBehind the bolted door and prayed for what\n\nWe knew we would not get, that they would leave\n\nAnd we by miracle would be untouched.\n\nIn through the shabby walls, like water through\n\nThe rotten log fallen across the stream,\n\nCame cut off screams, the tread of heavy boots,\n\nWailing of children who knew not their fate\n\nEven as its iron jaws around them closed,\n\nThe rustling roar of flames, the ring of steel,\n\nAll waxing in volume as they drew near.\n\nThen came a blow upon the door, that I\n\nFelt as if it had struck me in the chest.\n\nEre I could cry 'what?' to it, my body\n\nHad sprung up to the hearth, snatched down the sword,\n\nAnd charged the weakening wood. The brigand was\n\nBalancing in his foot a second kick,\n\nBut I, knowing not what I did, unsheathed\n\nThe blade grown black with smoke and long disuse\n\nAnd in one motion clove the door and him\n\nThat down he toppled, bleeding in the mud\n\nWith shards and splinters covering his head.\n\nI had just time to see that all around\n\nMy faceless gathered foe, with spear and sword,\n\nWith hatchet and long knife, then I was in\n\nAmong them like a rabid dog. As does\n\nA man missing a step accelerate\n\nAnd take his next three steps too swiftly, shoved\n\nForward by his own juggle-balanced weight,\n\nSo did the weight of my too-massive sword\n\nAnd my colossal anger drive me on:\n\nIf I had stopped, and let momentum fade,\n\nI could not either have lifted again.\n\nMy hands taught me to fight e'en as I fought.\n\nI parried, I struck back, I marveled that\n\nI had done either, even as again\n\nI parried, I struck back. Though they hit me\n\nTime and again, so that with sweat and blood\n\nI was anointed equally, I gave\n\nThe pain as little heed as does a bull\n\nIn his ferocious charge give to the hedge\n\nHe tramples through. The blood flowed in my eyes\n\nAnd blinking I fought on, my blindness but\n\nMaking my rage more deadly and more wild.\n\nWhen I had blinked my vision clear, the foe\n\nEach one lay slain and slaughtered. Then the rain,\n\nClear, cool, and stinging on my wounded side,\n\nBroke, came down, washed the bloody scene away.\n\nWith it came weariness, frigid and deep.\n\nMy eyes slid shut. I felt I fell asleep.\n\nI woke to water splashing on my brow\n\nAnd wondered for a moment why the sky\n\nShould show so bright a face unto the rain.\n\nYet as I sat upright, I found that I\n\nWas face-up in an infant brook, and not\n\nBeneath the thatched and dripping eaves. It lay\n\nWithin a wooded hollow. From above\n\nA gentle waterfall played cross my cheek\n\nAs lightly as a falling leaf would land.\n\nAs do the juices in the sun-ripe fruit\n\nPool in the bowl-shaped bite and gently ooze\n\nAlong the concave, to drip off the edge,\n\nSo did the waters glide around me to\n\nThe bottom of the hollow, under roots\n\nOf oaks ancient and muscular but bare,\n\nBeneath few fallen trunks, between the stones,\n\nNourishing the few ferns that still showed green,\n\nBefore it wandered off behind the trees\n\nAnd rocks the height of men. Three days I lay\n\nToo weak and too unwilling to move more\n\nThan gathering wild blackberries took. There\n\nWould I yet lie in lazy hermitage\n\nAs beasts that perish do, fearing not what\n\nThe next day's dawn may bring, and are content,\n\nWith nothing but a sword whose onyx blade\n\nI never would recover strength to lift,\n\nBut that on the third day the sun burned blue:\n\nThe spring that fed the waterfall dried up\n\nSo that naught but the barest trickle fell,\n\nAnd the sweet berries I subsisted on\n\nTurned sour and flavorless, like stricken grass.\n\nThat night I slept uneasily. I felt\n\nAgain some dire malevolence stalked round\n\nMy place of refuge, where I had not strength\n\nTo do more than watch it smash in the door\n\nAnd, grinning like a bonfire, cut my throat.\n\nThe morning broke cold, clear, clean, and quiet.\n\nMy hand remembered how to grip the hilt\n\nAnd I could feel my fate approaching. I\n\nDid not have to wait very long at all.\n\nBefore the sun stood in the middle sky\n\nA figure blundered over the low rim\n\nAnd slid its muddy way to where I stood.\n\nIt was clothed in decaying rags. It stank\n\nOf long-burned compost. I could see no face\n\nBehind its mask of mud and rusty ash,\n\nNor hear no breath, instead a sizzling hiss\n\nAs when the smelted ore is plunged and cooled.\n\nIt scrambled staggeringly to its feet\n\nAnd crouched as does a runner waiting for\n\nA split-second long signal to be gone\n\nOr like the rabbit that thinks itself heard\n\nBut not yet seen, and waits prepared to bolt.\n\nWhere it stood, lurking, the ground putrified\n\nThat had nourished and nursed me, and I felt\n\nWithin me something crumble like a dam.\n\nEre I had told my limbs to move, I leapt\n\nAcross the streambed, naked sword in hand.\n\nThe thing raised a notched hatchet, far too late.\n\nOverhead and straight down I slung my sword.\n\nWith both my weight and its I smashed its skull.\n\nI split it like firewood, from pate to groin,\n\nAnd cracked the rock it stood on. As it fell\n\nAlready crumbling, I behind me heard\n\nLaughter deep and satisfied. There a man\n\nArmored and armed, venerable but strong\n\nSmiling at me beneath a single eye,\n\nStood where the waterfall lately had poured.\n\n'Well met, young paladin,' he said, 'You need\n\nNo long encouragement, I see, who are\n\nImpatient so for glory that you join\n\nThe battle that roars thunderously around\n\nYour ears without waiting for recruitment.\n\nWe are both fortunate. I have no more\n\nTime to spare for recruiting. You will here\n\nFind glory that needs no officialdom.\n\nBring you your sword. I must be on my way,\n\nAnd that right swiftly, or all will be lost\n\nAnd this world will not see another day.'\n\nHe led me down the streambed, till it joined\n\nA river rushing stonily around\n\nOur knees, so that we left not track or trace.\n\nThe current pulled doggedly at my shins,\n\nWorn breeches, and thin shoes, and pushed at my\n\nCenter of gravity, as a wrestler\n\nTwists first this way then that, now pressing hard\n\nNow giving way, to topple with surprise\u0026nbsp;\n\nHis foe. My sword I carried on my head\n\nAway from the cold waters that crowded\n\nAgainst my ankles like an eager dog.\n\nWe marched all day, our faces toward the press\n\nOf current, the Old Man in front of me\n\nWho toiled in his wake, and as we went\n\nHe told me tales of warriors who had died\n\nFiercely enough to win an afterworld\n\nOf war. He said I would be counted high\n\nAmong them: 'It may be you are the one\n\nWho, in the pages too vast to be read\n\nWherein we move and live and have our day\n\nOf glory, is written to slay the foe\n\nTo save this world and everything it means.'\n\nAll night we walked, when I could not have seen\n\nThe man before me, save that fireflies\n\nAppeared around him. So we forged upstream\n\nBeneath a live, shifting celestial globe\n\nForever scribing constellations new\n\nAnd unforeseeable. Up from the stream\n\nThey shone back, rippling like the figures seen\n\nDarkly through wrinkled glass. As does a fort\n\nUpon a moonless midnight, hung with lights\n\nAt every door and window from its crown,\n\nBetween the crenellations, to the foot,\n\nAthwart the gate pillars on either side,\n\nIn the black fathomless moat waters throws\n\nIts own reflection, so seems it to come\n\nShouldering through the featureless darkness\n\nToward the wanderer to ride above\n\nHim, as he draws near, on light-doubled height,\n\nSo loomed his dark shape ever before me.\n\nAt sunrise, he spoke 'Halt,' and drew my eyes\n\nTo a divide between two mountain horns.\n\nThere in the early shadows, I could see\n\nA grand ruin. I followed him beneath\n\nAn arch whose gates rocked hinge-askew ajar,\n\nAcross a weed-thronged courtyard. There upon\n\nA stairway of card house toppled flagstones\n\nA faded crone stood, bent upon the sight\n\nOf the sunlight slinking along the slopes.\n\nMy guide greeted her, 'Hail, great Grandmother,\n\nWho told me there was no hope. Did you see\n\nHow this one crushed the Soot as easily\n\nAs men crush flies?\" She did not raise her eyes,\n\nBut said, 'How long is it since you killed flies?\n\nThey are more hardy than your platitudes\n\nWould credit. When I said there was no hope\n\nI meant it. And I speak the truth. You bring\n\nAnother mortal martyr, and you dream\n\nThat the inevitable is a lock\n\nThat only wants for finding the right key.\n\nThe first of your defenders fell last night.\n\nAnd more will join them, ere tomorrow's dawn.\n\nAlready, Soot press on to torch your hall.\n\nMy people are gathering to this place\n\nTo make good our escape. If you have sense,\n\nYou will fly with us, else this refuge is\n\nBecome a gallows. I have not your taste\n\nFor gallows-speeches.' The Old Woman turned\n\nTo push her way past us and down the stairs,\n\nWhen her hand chanced to brush mine, and the hilt\n\nOf the weapon I gripped. Her eyes snapped up\n\nAnd she stopped in mid-step, and when she spoke\n\nIt was not only with her voice. 'This blade\n\nWill deal the final blow that will be dealt\n\nIn this war. That will be the end. Past this\n\nI cannot see.' She shuddered, and pulled tight\n\nAround her shoulders her worn shawl, as if\n\nThe frayed threads could hold off the portent she\n\nHad uttered and set hovering around.\n\nShe spoke no more to us. The Old Man paused,\n\nThen sighed and swallowed his frustration, said,\n\n'Well, it is good to know I have not lost\n\nMy eye for a good warrior. I guessed right,\n\nWhen I guessed which I could afford to lose.\n\nIf you are so essential, then we must\n\nArm you more fittingly.' He led me in--\n\nYou would not know this room, it was so ruined--\n\nAnd from the stores before you he took out\n\nThis savage armor, this shirt of wolf-hair,\n\nThis fury-drugging warpaint. 'This store was\n\nLaid down in days that were called ancient in\n\nAntiquity. My people have changed much.\n\nNot one of them would recognize the arms\n\nThey once went proudly in. They have changed much,\n\nBut not enough. We still have not learned hope.'\n\nHe knelt, one hand laid past paternally,\n\nUpon my shoulder, like a sacrament\n\nAdministered in secret, hastily,\n\nHe fixed both my eyes with his steely one.\n\nThe sunrise filled the doorway, as if poured\n\nFrom a well on the sun of liquid light,\n\nCold, colorless, and clear in the clean dawn.\n\nHe spoke, 'Now you must do, and not divine.\n\nMust act and know you will not understand.\n\nBeyond this place, there lies a maze of caves\n\nDelved down below the very mountains' roots\n\nTo the foundations of the world, which are\n\nIdeas. All worlds are founded on ideas.\n\nFrom there I can go forth to any world,\n\nIn them will I be safe and stay unfound.\n\nI play chess with the darkness, and myself\n\nAm king. All will be lost if I am lost,\n\nSo you must be content to be a pawn.\n\nIt may be out there I will find the one\n\nWho is the key the Old Crone mocked you for.\n\nIt may be I will be pursued, and you\n\nWill be left to defend against nothing.\n\nIt may be that the Soot will break themselves\n\nUpon your stout defense, and win our war\n\nFor us. It may be all my fears are vain.\n\nBut you, until you see me once again,\n\nMust hold out, must endure, and must await\n\nI know not what.' I feared that he might breathe\n\nApologies, so for the only time\n\nI spoke to him. 'I will endure, and woe\n\nBefall him who makes test of it. Master,\n\nGo boldly where I do not understand.\n\nWhen you return, as you will, this place shall\n\nYet hold firm and unbreeched, and so will I.'\n\nThe Old Man almost laughed. He smiled and said,\n\n'You have told not your name, Klau Berserker.\n\nYou know not mine. Perhaps there is no need.\n\nDeeds, and not names, are our best weapons now.\n\nBut know this, if your name were known across\n\nThe multitude of worlds I'll wander through\n\nAnd honored in each one as it deserves,\n\nThey yet could not make up, with all their sum,\n\nThe honor in which I shall hold you.' Then\n\nHe rose, he turned his back, he vanished in\n\nThe dark archway you see behind me. Since\n\nThat day I have done much, yet have done naught.\n\nI have repaired the wall. I have mustered\n\nSuch forces as survived the Soot so far.\n\nI have kept safe the way out to the worlds\n\nAnd made the path level. I have opened\n\nMy stronghold to the Witchfolk refugees.\n\nI have held out. I have endured. I have\n\nAwaited you, Champion, and the day\n\nYou bring upon your heels. Soon will this sword\n\nAgain taste battle, and soon comes the day\n\nOf glory and salvation, when I strike\n\nA blow to end all blows. Your eyes shall see\n\nThe glory of the toppling of our foes!\"\n\nKlau shut his eyes, and smiled as if in bliss.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1717631-ragnarok-xii.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1718267-ragnarok-xiv.json"}}