{"sf1_id":1721265,"sf2_id":"A1pEqMe3","title":"Ragnarok - XXIII","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":1512,"posted_at":"2021-05-23T16:00:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1721265-ragnarok-xxiii","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/A1pEqMe3","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/97/89/9789fed0-dcc6-4bc9-95f8-f5fc4b1c836a","description":"#24 of Ragnarok\n\nCW: Violence, death\nKlau makes his last stand against the soot, and the Old Man arrives for a final reckoning with the Sulfur Carrier.","content":"Somewhere, amongst the ruins of ruins\n\nThe legions of dishonored dead, hissing\n\nAs might an immolated corpse upon\n\nA burning ship, at cold saltwater's touch,\n\nWith agonizing slowness flung themselves\n\nAgainst the hated company who held,\n\nThough pitifully few, the ramparts still,\n\nThough for ramparts they had only the stairs,\n\nAnd for stronghold only the council hall.\n\nSomewhere the night was burning. Acrid smoke\n\nClung sluggishly to edges of the air.\n\nIt formed no clouds or coils. It was not seen\n\nSave as a far-off dinginess, as if\n\nThe world were dirty, grey, and not quite there,\n\nBut it was felt, as vertigo and sweat\n\nBoth gritty and oily. And it was smelt:\n\nLike long-dead shellfish in the fine beach mud,\n\nLike burning styrofoam and melting glass,\n\nLike rotting ashes in the gutted wreck\n\nOf a high hall burned down ages ago.\n\nThe aura of it lay on everything.\n\nSomewhere it was pure war. Here life itself\n\nIn person of the still-heroic dead\n\nWrestled against black death and nothingness.\n\nAnd life was not having the upper hand.\n\nAs do red ants, about a lizard's mouth\n\nThat dies of thirst in colorado wastes,\n\nJostle and swarm, so did the undead hordes\n\nOf soot, hissing their hate venomously,\n\nGrope toward the few defenders none could reach\n\nSave for the foremost few. And these could strike\n\nBut once each ere they were cut down and crushed.\n\nBut once each was enough. Lief Fatherless\n\nWent down bleeding all down his narrow face.\n\nTorg the Lucky, luck all run out, was pierced\n\nFrom breast to backbone, spine split and severed.\n\nHeath Finder-of-Rich-Land with mighty shout\n\nBore down the stairs, his body the shield wall\n\nMaking his foes his bludgeons, as a mote\n\nOf snow upon the slopes bears down the rest\n\nInto an avalanche unstoppable,\n\nEven as his blood washed their rusty blades.\n\nAnd one by one fell all the rest, until\n\nBut two were left, holding the very door.\n\nSomewhere Varr Last-to-Flee looked up and saw\n\nA heavy hopeless sky, and framed thereon\n\nThe Sulfur Carrier, patient, grinning,\n\nAnd brimming with malice. As back to back\n\nWith Klau the Berserker he stood, he growled,\n\n\"We cannot hold. We need a bulwark, and\n\nWe need it now. Flesh, however noble,\n\nIs no fit substitute for solid stone.\"\n\n\"And solid stone we had,\" Klau shouted back,\n\nSplitting one soot in half like kindling wood,\n\n\"Much good it did us! Where now will we get\n\nAnother wall? I can't repair again\n\nThis stronghold.\" Varr ducked underneath a spear\n\nWith snarls thrust at his face, and slashed across\n\nThe three soot foremost. As they toppled back\n\nHe shouted, \"If you did repair this place,\n\nWith what did you repair it?\" Klau locked hilts\n\nWith a dead ashen hulk that hissed a draught\u0026nbsp;\n\nOf smoke and rotten eggs straight in his face\n\nUntil the black sword shore its rusty blade\n\nClean through, and clove the soot head from body,\n\nAnd said, \"I took loose stones from slopes above.\n\nBut what good does that-\" But Varr shouted \"Stand!\n\nBut stand your ground three minutes, Berserker,\n\nAnd I may give you victory hails yet!\"\n\nVarr turned and scrambled up the jagged rocks,\n\nHis shield cast aside, his sword clenched in\n\nHis teeth, his mouth choked with the taste of blood\n\nAnd oil and steel and bitter sulfur grit.\n\nHe hauled and kicked his way up the rock face\n\nUntil he stood above the hall. Meanwhile\n\nKlau like a bramble forest shaken by\n\nA hurricane, with oversized sword ripped\n\nThe air and anything that it contained,\n\nShredding in mid-stride any soot that came\n\nNear to the topmost stair by but a pace.\n\nAnd if he felt the wounds that flashed across\n\nHis narrow chest, his whirling arms, his face\n\nScored with both sweat and blood, he turned his ire\n\nOn his pain and his dead enemies both\n\nAnd with them both for fuel so stoked his rage\n\nSo that like red firelight on chimney's lip\n\nHis eyes shone red, and like a thunderhead\n\nJust boiling over he both laughed and roared\n\nSo that between the laughter and the roar\n\nThere was no seam. But Varr his back turned to\n\nThe battle, and the loose and jagged stone\n\nThat was the mountain's knees he grappled with.\n\nHe strained and strove to lift a mighty heap,\n\nBut only one small stone shifted and slid,\n\nBounced down the slope, fell in Klau's maelstrom\n\nOf steel, and with a thin clamorous clang\n\nWas like a baseball hurled into the sky.\n\nVarr clenched his teeth and gripped his sword. He plunged\n\nThe blade beneath a mighty boulder, and\n\nWith all his weight hauled back and down. The rock\n\nFirst groaned, then shifted. The abused sore sword\n\nFirst bent, then snapped. Varr thudded to his knees\n\nAs the unseated stones cascaded down.\n\nKlau struck his last and slew his final foe,\n\nThen lept behind the granite waterfall.\n\nThe stones tore down the stairs, and swept the soot\n\nBroken and smashed like branches in a flood\n\nOff of the breaking stair onto the plain\n\nAnd even to the Sulfur Carrier's toes.\n\nVarr skidded from above the arch, and dropped,\n\nCrying, \"We did it! Let them try to win\n\nNow up these broken steps! Nay not steps, cliffs!\n\nA single man could now this passage hold!\"\n\n\"A single man must hold it,\" grunted Klau,\n\n\"His companion is broken.\" Varr bent down\n\nAnd saw, Klau's legs beneath the rocks fast pinned\n\nAt an unnatural angle, and above\n\nBlood welled from wounds myriad, jagged, deep\n\nTo pool around him like the melt from ice.\n\n\"No, do not stoop to me,\" Klau gasped, \"My time\n\nIs coming fast, and nothing can you do\n\nTo save me. Now you have another task.\"\n\nHe gripped his black sword by the blade and held\n\nThe hilt toward Varr. \"It was foretold that this\n\nWould strike the blow that gives us victory.\n\nFool that I was, I thought that it would be\n\nMy hand that struck with it. No matter now.\n\nTell them, when you stand triumphing, that I\n\nMy duty have discharged, my glory won.\"\n\n\"Your duty is well done, and your glory,\"\n\nA voice came, low and quiet, from the door,\n\n\"Is won indeed. You promised me to wait\n\nUntil I was returned. I am returned.\n\nYour word you have well kept, Klau Berserker,\n\nSo be at peace,\" The Old Man said, and smiled.\n\nKlau looked in disbelief, and slowly shone\n\nA look across his bloody face as if\n\nHis forefathers had all appeared to say\n\nThat his deeds were the capstone of their pride,\n\nHe seemed about to speak, but ere he did,\n\nA long slow breath did he release, and did\n\nNot breathe again. His eyes the Old Man shut.\n\nThen the last two defenders looked out on\n\nThe ruins thrice-ruined and choked with Soot.\n\nVarr moved to ask what was the Old Man's will,\n\nBut first the Sulfur Carrier stirred at last.\n\nIt seemed to swell, as does a diver's chest\n\nBefore he leaps the cliffs, and all the Soot\n\nTurned toward it, slack jaws gaping--those that yet\n\nHad jaws--as if to sing, or in surprise,\n\nAnd eyes all blazing like far off headlights.\n\nThe sizzle hissing from them all increased\n\nFrom kettle boiling, through static feedback,\n\nTo rocket engine. Then like embers in\n\nThe blast of the bellows, they glowed, they cracked.\n\nTheir substance was consumed by fires within,\n\nAnd as they were blown out reduced to ash\n\nTheir hiss became a howl. Their claws reached out\n\nAs if to paralyze with hollow voice\n\nAnd then to grasp the Sulfur Carrier.\n\nBut as they each burned up, the giant swelled,\n\nIts shadow bulging high and spreading through\n\nThe sky, to block the false dawn and the stars,\n\nThe moltenness within pulsing like tide\n\nOr heartbeat, and its grin spread wide and sharp.\n\nVarr hefted Klau's black sword, and said \"My Lord,\n\nWhat plans have you? What stratagems employ?\n\nAnd where is my Blood Brother? Where is Shane?\n\nWhat shall we do without the Champion?\"\n\nThe Old Man shook his head. His eye was wrapped\n\nIn a long cloth, that hung on his shoulders.\n\nHis pauldrons and his breastplate gilded were.\n\nHe wielded a long spear of living oak\n\nWhose point was razor sharp, and was not carved\n\nBut grown. \"I do not know what plans we have.\n\nI meant for Shane and I to come in wrath\n\nAnd overwhelm and overrun, and win.\n\nBut we betrayed were. All my plans are void.\n\nSo what shall we do now? Why we shall stand.\n\nTwas said by Shane the Champion, and he\n\nSpoke true, that when all plans are failed, then you\n\nMust only stand. So you and I shall stand.\n\nAnd may it be that we do stand will be\n\nA victory invincible, for naught\n\nCan undo or unmake that we two stood.\n\nWhat glory can be hoped for more than this?\"\n\nNo time for more speech had they. The huge claws\n\nWere raised, the ponderous footsteps echoed.\n\nThe Sulfur Carrier was upon them.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720943-ragnarok-xxii.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1721656-ragnarok-xxiv.json"}}