The King and the rest of the huntsmen gathered atop the ridge as it appeared that the raging bull had gone off. They laughed and many began to joke about the whole episode.
The Queen laughed and said, “Aye, but we’ll have plenty of meat and another adventure, my Ealdormen. And brave Sigmund’s first shaggy-haired hunt! Isn’t that right, Little brother?” laughed the Queen. She looked and saw that Siggy wasn’t there. She looked around the Thanes and Ealdormen and Sigmund could not been seen! “Where is the young Lord? Where is he? Sigmund, no jokes! Oh Sigurd, my husband, have you seen him? My Father, where is Siggy?” asked Queen Gwynnalyn in a voice of worry. Worry, yet not one of panic.
Everyone was looking around and Lord Volsung asked sharply, “Which way did the Shaggy-haired bull go? We must find my son at once, my King!”
“Yes, Lord Volsung, we must. Everyone, I want you to spread into groups of four. Even all Thanes; and find the whereabouts of Siggy!”
It didn’t take long to find Little Brother. They all soon heard the bellows of the raging bull back down in the forest. He was raging in the trees and the ground shook! Sigmund had managed to leap from his horse into a tree and climb for dear life, just as the raging mammoth had come very close to catching the twelve-year-old Getic Lord with a mighty tusk! In fact, the beast had disembowelled the boy’s horse at the bottom of the tree and was now bellowing and jumping, attempting to break the tree to the ground to get at Sigmund! The boy had climbed all the way into the top!
Just as Lord Volsung arrived with the King and Queen behind him, the tree branches broke and young Sigmund fell down, square onto the back of the raging bull! Sigmund was screaming for help as he held on for dear life to the matted wool of the huge beast! The animal thrashed from side to side, tossing its giant head and bellowing in rage! The dust was flying! The Getic horsemen let loose a shower of arrows into the ribs of the beast and the Queen shouted, “No! You’ll hit the boy! Anyone who hits Siggy, I will take my dagger and make of him a Eunuch!”
What would they do now? This was the worst thing that could have happened and no-one would have ever thought that Little Lord Sigmund would ride a raging bull mammoth. The beast rose on its hind legs and Lord Volsung threw a spear into its belly! The bull crashed back down onto its front legs and the spear went deeper into its palate due to impact with the ground! It raised its back legs and kicked like a mule and Sigmund was thrown backwards off the back of the raging woolly mammoth, high into the air, and he landed hard on the ground! But the beast was now distracted away from Sigmund by his family!
“Come after me, beast!” cried Lord Volsung. He shot it in the head with an arrow, but it bounced away, doing no damage!
“We must lead the beast away from the boy!” shouted Lord Gedron.
The King fired four arrows at the bull and they turned and began leading the wounded bull away from the boy, who lay as if dead on the ground. Lord Gedron and the Queen rode as fast as they could to where Kleine Bruder lay bleeding on the hard earth! Gedron jumped off his horse and swept his dear little brother off the ground and into his arms. He heaved the 100-pound boy up into the arms of his sister and she held him close to her, arms around him, controlling the mare with her knees and legs! Lord Gedron was quickly back in the saddle and away he rode, guarding the Queen’s rescue from behind! In the meanwhile, the bull noticed that the herd was away, and so gave up pursuit of the men and retreated downstream.
Siggier, along with Horsa, was just beginning to climb down from atop the rocks when the bull showed up. He saw the two dead mammoths from his herd and then let out a raging bellow. But he was much weaker now because of his wounds and the spear within its belly made him less powerful but no less dangerous. He charged at the men and ran the ballista’s crew back atop the rocks! Then he turned and went back to the dead mammoths, and stood over them.
The King led the rest of the huntsmen towards the scene and then paused, saying to Lord Volsung, “The bull does this to protect his tribe. He is no less a King than I am. We shall let him go and hope he lives to fight again. To him, we are the Slaughter-Wolves, Lord Volsung. As we do what we do to live, so does the Shaggy-haired King.”
They watched as the great bull slowly limped away, leaving the two dead ones on the field. He staggered to the river and then fell with a great thunder amidst a cloud of dust. He had fought the good fight and his cows and calves had made good their escape. The Getic would honour his memory and this day’s events would be remembered by the Scop and sung of by the Skalds of Getica from generation to generation well-nigh into the time of Roderick the Visigoth. They would sing of brave Lord Sigmund, Mammoth Rider!
The village went to work on the skinning and gutting of the three great mammoths. Little Lord Sigmund lay in the tent of his father and mother. He lay broken and wounded, while the Priestess Byrnhilda, skilled in the healing arts, wrapped his broken ribs and set the boy’s broken arm back straight. She washed and dressed his scraped and cut back and legs with special ointments and savs, and then treated his punctured legs with poultices. He lay asleep in the blankets and furs with his family at his side.
It was then Byrnhilda chanted prayers over the boy and his mother Gerda held his head, running a brush through her boy’s long hair as he lay sleeping, saying, “That’s my Siggy, that’s my little Siggy.”
Gwynnalyn and Greta each held a hand as the great Warlord Volsung and Gedron stood over them all, with the King at their side. A group of boys entered. It was his friends, the brothers Gustav and Lars, who were twins age twelve, Rexor age ten and Olaf age eight.
Gustav and Lars took the sleeping Sigmund’s two hands and Gustav said, “You are our Prince and best friend. You just got to make it.”
Lars said, “You’re a real mammoth rider, Siggy. You got to pull through. The guys and all of us will be lost without you.”
Volsung took them all under his mighty arms and said, “He will, boys. He’s going to make it. It takes more than a mammoth bull to get your Prince down. Sit with him now, boys.”
The tribe remained here in this location for the time being to allow Sigmund to recover and to allow the meat to be prepared. There was a great feast that night in celebration and this was accompanied by much singing and dancing and the playing of music. The skald composed a new song this night to sing of the bravery of Prince Sigmund, Mammoth Rider.
Adawulf Hister was very angry. “Throostra, Volsung’s runt lived! The mammoth did not kill him! He must die, Throostra!”
“But why, Master? What is so important about him? I understood you, Dread Lord of Darkness, when you sent the waters of the flood down the mountain river to kill Prince Rognir and the King’s Mother, but why this runt?” asked the snidely little Gnome.
“Why this runt, you ask. It is because of the Prophecy given to young Queen Gwynnalyn by Thor. The White Wizard Byock has broken the spell of barrenness I cast over the womb of the Shield Maid when she was born. Ronan will come forth from Gwynnalyn’s womb from the true love of King and Queen. The child of Prophecy must either die or be turned to the Dark Side! I despise this Argob!” Turning to the Huggin, he said with a sarcastic tone of voice, “True love indeed!” He walked out on the balcony with Argob on his shoulder and Throostra at his side and looked down from the lofty height, beyond the castle walls and into the valley below, where he could see his Gutthiuda Thralls working the fields and others bringing up stones for the work on his massive new building project.
Hister said, “I have foreseen that the baby can be turned to the dark side if we play the game right, but it will be hard. Looking into my power I see that the runt Sigmund must play some great part in the survival and indeed very life of the Ronan child! This must not be allowed to happen!”
Argob replied, “But Dread Master of Evil, we have failed except in the case of the Aslaug and Rognir! Even the attacks on Osrik the Bald have failed. What must we do now?”
Hister’s eyes glowed red with Jotnar’s fire and his face was pale and almost light bl
ue. His black hood rested over his head and the ruler of the Dark North replied, “We must find the White Wizard Byock and slay him. He is a Prophet and draws his power from the enemy God Shaddai and from Wotan and Thor! The Sons of Light are rising to oppose us: Yoshael the Elf, Master of their order, as well as Dithranti and Yonas and that stinking Faun Aesop! The Spirit Maidens are beginning to gather and are a grave threat! My young Gnome apprentice, Argob my Servant, our power comes from Loki, the shape-shifting one. What we do now shall bring on Ragnarok and Gotterdammerung. When the great battle comes between the gods, Thor and Wotan will be destroyed in flame as well as the Valkyries! A new world will arise and I shall be Imperator over all of it. This is by the word of Loki himself. The kingdom we make now is only the beginning! Though we wage war here in Midgard, the greatest battle is in the heavens and yet to come! The tower is beginning to rise! The tower which my ancestor Nimrod failed to complete in Babylon begins to rise here in Dakkia! Once we have retrieved all pieces of the All Seeing Eye, and it is placed on the Ziggurat, the final countdown will begin!”
Throostra replied, “But what of the final gemstone for the Eye? Was it not cast into the sea and lost forever? How shall we retrieve it, Dark Master?”
The three of them returned inside and the evil sorcerer replied, “Leave that to me. The Gnome Dunsel continues his search and he will not fail to bring me back my inheritance. This is my right as a descendent of King Nimrod.” Hister’s laughter echoed once again through the halls of Kul-Oba. Leaving Throostra, Hister retired to his private chambers, where the Princess Heike awaited.
Chapter V
A New Hope
From the Skald’s Tale:
He was the King, a sabre-toothed tiger slayer known as Osrik Kordson the Bald. He was about thirty-two years of age, yet all of his hair had fallen out. The reason was unknown and none dare ask. His tribe of Tervingians, called the Gepids, lived north of the Hyrcannian Sea in the valley of the River of Rha. His was the great Ring Fortress, the city called Thorstadt. South and east of them was a mighty tribe of Dwarves moving ever north. For as the great canyons became free of ice-locked slopes, and glaciers gave way to pastures green, King Togrobeg Andarvarson and his Dwarves would go to seek their homes in the lofty crags of Ariemel. I shall tell thee all much more of these great heroes.
T ime had allowed King Osrik Kordson to set up a great earth and wooden ring fortress city, centred about a great longhouse called Thorstadt (City of Thor). This was the King’s Mead Hall where court was held and all affairs of state settled. It was the meeting hall of the Great Council of Ealdormen. Last year’s barley and hops crop had enabled the Gepids to produce ample amounts of their famous Alt Ale. Then, there had come the word that Brother King Sigurd Rothgarson had returned from Assyria with new weapons. Tribute to their evil Scythian overlords had been refused. Now it was war and Osrik knew that, only united as one could the Tervingian people defeat the Armies of King Idanthrsus and General Korgan-Tal and all their wicked allies. The Midgard war was now on.
King Osrik was a bit of a sad figure. The Slaughter-Wolves had killed his beloved Queen Heidi. Ogres had taken away his beautiful baby girl three years before. Her name was Gnita and she was a princess merely age six when taken away to who knows where. Rumours had placed her captivity amongst the Gutthiuda Thralls at Kul-Oba, but in spite of all efforts to find her, Osrik’s Quest Warriors had been slain by Ogres and Sarmatians in the dark, brooding forests of the mountains of Dakkia. Some had perished in Myrkvidr, the last thing heard by them being the hideous Primal Scream!
After this, what little hair Osrik had left fell from his brow and a deep, deep sadness overcame the King. Were it not for his noble adviser, Ealdorman Snaevar, the tribe would have been lost and scattered to the four winds and Thorstadt destroyed, becoming the abode of the lizard and the spider! But, knowing that the only hope was to defeat the Slaughter-Wolves, and that his brother King Sigurd was even now on his way to Thorstadt, Osrik the Bald gained heart! He refused the tribute and slew the Scythian tax collectors who had come up from Gelonus to seize tribute and plunder! With them had been a Gargoyle, the nefarious Commander Ramses. Osrik decapitated the Scythian Slaughter-Wolves! He placed their heads in a deer-hide sack and one of his Axemen tossed it to the Gargoyle. “Fly this back to your Master, Ramses! Tell him King Osrik Kordson of Thorstadt says, ‘Here be your unjust taxes, oh filthy tyrant!’”
There was a great gathering now. All the scattered Tervingian tribes, the Getic and Gepids, as well as the Thyssagetae, Issedones and Massagetae bands, led by their own Kings, in distant Mead Halls were sent word via the arrow of war carried from tribe to tribe by the messengers, that they should gather at Great Bend on the River Rha in the City of Thorstadt, where there would be a Witena Gemot (Grand Council). From far and wide across the vast steppes of Midgard they came, for now was the time. The word went forth as well to the Gutthiuda of Helmgard, in hopes that many would escape bondage and make their way east to join the Rebel Alliance.
The passage of one month brought King Sigurd and his tribe to the great River Rha. His ranks had been swelled to well at or above 25,000 warriors, as all those out-land Ealdormen and their small villages, having heard the call of the good Getic King, answered his call to arms, accepting gladly the arrow of war. From far and wide they came, seeking one thing: a peace that would only be found after the evil empire had been vanquished. To do this there must be unity among all Tervingian peoples. The only ones of these sons of Gomer not answering were those poor unfortunate wretches, the Gutthiuda, who bore the burdens of the slave’s yoke under the cruel taskmasters of Hister at Kul-Oba. They no longer had a king to unite them, for after the destruction of Helmgard, it was said that Hister had turned King Snorri and Queen Utgerda into trees and stolen away their teenaged daughter, the Princess Heike, who thereafter became his unwilling mistress.
In the great Longhouse of Osrik the Bald on the 25th day of the month of Sol-manour and Heyannir, as reckoned on the Rune Stav of Scap Rolf, a cheer went up in the Witan. The great King Osrik rose from his throne! His sceptre was made of the leg bone of a great sabre-toothed cat, which he had slain with the edge of the sword in a battle eastward in Myrkvidr, also known as the Great Mystic Marsh, a place few dared enter because of the horrors that lay within. Hister saw that his cat was vanquished on that day, so long ago when Osrik and his best friend Regin were both seventeen years of age.
“That was one vicious tiger, but you slew him all the same,” declared a happy Regin.
“There is more than one way to skin a cat,” replied Osrik, as he removed a rear limb and both dagger teeth. From the teeth he made his necklace. The limb was polished and fitted with a cap of gold encrusted with precious gemstones – rubies, diamonds and sapphires, as well as onyx, chrysalis and jasper, all of which had been taken from the sack of a Goblin, killed by Osrik’s hunting companion and friend Regin with a piercing arrow, while the Huggin Morgana watched it all from her perch up in a tree. The wicked Goblin had led the way before the great cat from Dakkia by order of Hister. The dark wizard wished to remove Osrik before the young prince could assume the throne of the Gepids when has father King Kord passed into Valhalla. He sent forth the Huldra, who first tried to entice Regin who, knowing that no real human woman would live in such a place as Myrkvidr, cast her from him! She failed to conquer Osrik as well, for he drove the demon away, showing that he would make a true and honourable King. It was then that he and his friend Regin heard for the first time the demonic Primal Scream, echoeing through the dark forests, and the two of them fled Myrkvidr, never to return.
Hister had failed here and failed to slay his other targets, when sending a spell-bound mammoth after young Prince Sigurd and his friend Gedron. A mysterious Elf by the name of Shlomael, Gedron’s Norn, appeared to the boy and warned him just in time. Gedron never told his friend Sigurd about his Norn, but his sister knew it well, for she had a Norn also.
King Osrik waved his sceptre and all the Lords of his Wit
an as well as other honoured guests in the Mead Hall fell silent. “The great day draws nigh, my people! Messengers come from King Sigurd, who is now approaching with a host of our brothers and sisters from the south! Soon to come are our allies, the Issedones, Thyssagetae and Massagetae for their Mead Halls have been sacked and burned! In one day we join forces and soon it will be for Idanthrsus and the Slaughter-Wolves, Ragnarok, the twilight of both they and their evil gods!”
Osrik thrust his noble sceptre skywards and began a great cheer, which all Thanes and Ealdormen joined in thunderous applause! Many rounds of ale in great mugs were shared that day, served up by the Ale Master, Tanman.
“Siggy hated to ride to the city in Mother’s wagon, beloved hunter,” said Queen Gwynnalyn to King Sigurd. They were side by side on horseback. Their royal Thanes were around them a few paces away, giving the couple time for private conversation. She was a legendary beauty among the peoples of the great steppes! She was absolutely the most beautiful barbarian woman ever to grace Midgard and with her eyes she could hypnotise her beloved Sigurd with her sorcery of love. She was wearing a purple skirt and her comfortable elk-skin boots, which were lined on the inside with soft fur. Not that she needed it. Her feet were tough enough to run across bare rock! She was wearing a purple blouse as well and today no chain-mail. However, she carried her seven concealed daggers and her sword belt bearing the now-famous Gwynnian Scythe. Her long red-raven hair was tied with two ponytails which started just above each petite ear. They came round to the side and were joined in the back as one large ponytail, which dropped to her waist. This was the favourite style of her husband and daily he thanked Asgard for such a treasure as her.
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