Ragnarok Rising

by D. A. Roberts

  Before he could bring his sword up for another swing, I stepped inside his reach and swung for his neck. Steel rang on steel as he brought the massive blade up and deflected my blow, locking our swords together. For just an instant, we shoved against one another but the contest was never in doubt. After taking a measure of my strength, he shoved me easily away and onto my back.

  I rolled to my left and narrowly avoided the boot that he brought down where I had been laying. He spun around savagely swinging the blade with enough force to cleave a tree in half, but I was already moving away. His blade cut only air as I rolled past him and leapt to my feet. He spun around for another shot before I was ready to dodge. My only chance was in blocking the blow.

  Steel rang against steel for the second time as I felt the blow shake me to the core and spiked pain all the way up both arms. It was all I could do to keep my grip on my own blade from the force of the impact. I managed to shove his blade far enough to my right that I could roll away from it and get inside his reach. It wasn’t enough for me to bring my sword into contact, but I did the next best thing.

  With as much force as I could manage, I swung and drove my elbow into the side of his face, catching him right below the right eye. With a roar more of anger than pain, he released his grip on his sword with his left hand and drove it into my kidneys. The force of the blow nearly drove me to my knees and white-hot pain shot up my spine. His fists struck like a wrecking ball and I was sure that I would be pissing blood for a week.

  Breaking to the right and away, I sliced upward with my sword and dug a long, deep gash along his exposed left arm. This time, he did howl in pain. He might have been stronger than me, but I drew first blood. I could tell that the wound was going to need a lot of stitches to close it because his arm was covered in blood. Even his blood had an odd bluish tint to it. Something about this man just wasn’t quite right. At least he was favoring his left arm now, and was only using the sword with one hand.

  One hand or not, he was still massively strong and could kill me with one blow if I wasn’t careful. He was now studying me more carefully, with a measured look of hate and respect on his face. I smiled knowing that he had underestimated me, as well. I doubt that he would be making that mistake again.

  With a sudden rush, he kicked dirt at my face and came at me in a flash. I managed to block the worst of the dirt, but I was momentarily blinded. Bringing my sword up in an instinctive block, I felt the massive impact as his weapon smashed against mine. This time, the ring of steel was permeated with a different sound. Without looking, I knew what that sound had been. He had just broken my sword.

  I stepped back as fast as I could, blinking furiously to clear the dirt from my eye. The big warrior spun his sword around him with the blade swishing through the air. The feral look in his eyes told me that he thought the fight was almost over. The problem was he could be right. I was going to have to be very careful if I expected to survive this. I dove forward and rolled past him, coming back to my feet in a crouch.

  A quick glance told me that the blade of my sword now lay in the dirt at the giant’s feet. I was holding the hilt with only a few shards of the blade still attached. There wasn’t a piece of the blade left that was big enough to cut with. My only other bladed weapon was a combat knife, and it was no match for a broadsword. I could tell that he was sensing the kill, but was tormenting me by waiting. The problem was I wasn’t planning on dying. My mind was rapidly running through things I could do to avoid that possibility. Unfortunately, there just weren’t that many options left to me. I was going to have to improvise.

  “This game ends now,” he said, grinning. “You have been a worthy foe. Your death brings me great satisfaction.”

  “Up yours, pal,” I replied. “This fight ain’t over yet.”

  “Don’t you know when you are beaten?” he snapped. “Kneel before me and I will make your end swift.”

  “I see two problems with that,” I replied. “One, I don’t kneel before anyone. And two, as far as I can see, unless you plan to talk me to death, I’m not out of this fight.”

  “So be it,” he replied, darkly. “You have chosen the path of agony. You will not die quickly.”

  This time, he came at me with a powerful slice that was meant to disembowel me. I managed to leap back just enough to avoid the worst of it, but he did manage to score a groove across my body armor. The Interceptor vest was great for ballistics, but offered little or no protection against an edged attack.

  As soon as the sword had passed me, I stepped inside and drove the broken hilt of my sword into his face, smashing his nose and upper lip with the metal pommel. I felt the bone of his nose give way and saw the blood begin to flow from the now broken nostrils. With his left hand, he shot out and grabbed me by the throat. I was too close for him to use the sword on, so he dropped it to the dirt and wrapped both hands around my neck. I could feel the pressure mounting and my eye began to bulge in its socket.

  As my vision began to go red at the edges, I tried to bring up the hilt of the sword to strike him again, but I could not reach around his massive arms to strike anything vital. I could feel myself beginning to get dizzy and I fought to keep from losing consciousness. If I blacked out, the fight was over. I wouldn’t wake up from that.

  In desperation, I reached out for anything that I could use as a weapon. In my frantic grasping, my hand fell on the handle of something familiar. As I continued to struggle against blacking out, I yanked my combat knife free from its scabbard and drove it into his ribs, burying it to the hilt. I could feel the hot stickiness of his blood as it poured over my fingers.

  With a grunt of pain, I felt his grip loosen slightly. It was enough that I could take part of a breath and keep from losing the fight to the darkness. With a gasp, I felt my strength ebbing by the second, but I knew I had to finish the job. I violently twisted the knife and heard his grunt become a bellow of agony. In that glorious instant, he let go of my throat.

  I fell to my knees as I ripped the blade free and he fell back away from me. My hand was still coated in his blood and it dripped from the tip of the knife in large, bluish-red drops. He fell backwards and landed with a stunned look on his face, while I gulped down breath after incredibly sweet breath of air. I was alive and had the upper hand, for the moment.

  I could see bubbles in the blood that was emerging from his side, so I knew that I had pierced a lung. He stared at me with uncomprehending eyes, as if he couldn’t fathom losing to me. Shock turned to anger in a flash, and I could see his decision in his eyes. I was moving before he was, anticipating what was about to come. His hand reached out for the pistol on his hip.

  He managed to yank the big handgun free as I dove on top of him. I drove my knife to the hilt in the center of his chest as I heard the massive report of the big handgun. Instantly, it felt like I had been struck in the chest by a sledgehammer. The force of the blow threw me off of him and knocked me onto my back.

  I lay there in the dirt, gasping for breath while my chest felt like it was on fire and compressed in a vice. I knew that the massive bullet had got me right in the sternum. I felt along the front of my armor, hoping that I wasn’t going to feel blood pouring from a ragged chest wound. If I could have drawn a breath, I would have screamed for joy when my fingers found the slug flattened out against my trauma plate. I didn’t have a gunshot wound, but I still could very well have broken ribs.

  Forcing myself up and onto one elbow, I looked at my opponent. He was blinking rapidly and either trying to gulp down air or say something. I wasn’t quite sure which. His eyes were beginning to lose focus and his pistol dropped from nerveless fingers into the dirt beside him. With a last gasp, his head dropped back into the dirt and he was still.

  Coughing, I forced myself to my knees and then to my feet. My chest was still burning and every breath I took was sheer agony. Stumbling to his body, I grasped my knife by the handle and tried to pull it free. It was stuck solidly in his breastbone. It wasn’t goin
g to come out easily and I didn’t have the strength left to yank it free.

  “Fuck it,” I wheezed. “Stay there.”

  I unbuckled his pistol and sword belt and then slung them both over my shoulder. I recovered his sword and gun, putting them both back in their respective holders. I didn’t see anymore of his gear, but I really couldn’t afford to spend any time looking for it. I needed to get out of the area before any of the dead stumbled across us. I wasn’t in any shape for another fight.

  The last thing I did was pick up the broken blade of my sword and slide it back into the scabbard. Although broken, I might still yet find a use for it. Besides that, it had served me well over the last couple of months and I wanted to keep it. Grabbing the hilt, I started stumbling down the ditch towards the boat. I just hoped that they hadn’t left yet. It was going to be a long walk to anywhere, if they had.

  As I stumbled the last few yards to the end of the ditch, I could see the boat was still beached. Sky was carefully checking over the wounded astronaut while Shura held the AK-47 and covered the area. He smiled and waved when he saw me and I returned the wave. I didn’t feel up to a smile. At least they had made it to the boat.

  Glancing back over my shoulder, I froze at what I saw. Although I could see the mound of debris where the wreckage of the aircraft was at, there was something missing. It took it a moment to sink into my still addled mind. The alarm bells were ringing in my ears and it suddenly hit me what I was missing.

  The big warrior was gone.

  Chapter Six

  Supply Run

  "The marksman hitteth the target partly by pulling,

  partly by letting go. The boatsman reached the landing

  partly by pulling, partly by letting go."

  - Egyptian Proverb

  Sky helped me onto the boat and guided me onto one of the couches. Every shallow breath I took caused me intense pain. As Morgan backed us out into the main part of the river, Sky deftly removed my armor and equipment, setting them on the deck beside me. When she took the big sword, her eyes opened wide with surprise.

  “I bet there’s a story behind this,” she said, holding up the hilt of the sword.

  I noticed now that the hilt was carved with the head of a wolf and the cross-piece was inlaid with knot-work and runes. They were binding runes, but I couldn’t think of their meanings at the moment. It was too difficult to think. The blade was mine now and as a token of my victory, I would rename it. It would be called Ulfrbrandr, the wolf blade.

  “Yeah,” I managed to croak through the pain.

  “You can tell me another time,” she replied. “Now, let me check you out.”

  I didn’t try to say anything else. Instead, I just leaned back against the seat and let her work. She made me wince several times as she probed my ribs with her fingers. She examined my back and grimaced at what she saw. When I was lying back again, she turned to me with a frown.

  “Well, I don’t think that anything is broken,” she said. “You’re going to hurt for a while from the bruises, but I don’t feel anything out of place. You have a fist-shaped bruise on your back the size of a softball.”

  I just nodded in lieu of a reply. No broken ribs were good news, but the pain was still enough to keep me out of the fight for a while. If I was lucky, we would stay out of danger so long as we remained on the boat. It would only be dangerous when we had to go ashore.

  “How is she,” I gasped, pointing at the astronaut on the deck.

  “Resting,” replied Sky. “Her leg is definitely broken and I think she has a concussion. I gave her something for the pain.”

  “Good,” I hissed.

  “Get some rest,” said Sky. “You look like you could use it.”

  I did as instructed. Closing my eyes, I tried to relax and let the pain subside. I was only marginally successful and my chest continued to feel like I’d been struck by a bull. Although my breathing was excruciating, I could tell that nothing was grinding together when my chest moved. At least she was right about the ribs. It was a start.

  I don’t know how long I lay there, but I felt myself fading in and out of sleep. The sun was high in the sky when I felt comfortable enough to breathe without wincing in pain. As I sat up and my head began to clear, I could see that we were still on the river and drifting slowly with the current. Up ahead I could see a bridge, but we were still easily a mile away from it. On the right end of the bridge was a decent sized town. I didn't know the name of it, but it looked like it had a distinctly German flavor to the architecture that I could see.

  A shadow fell across my face, bringing me out of my thoughts. Shura was standing over me and handing me a bottle. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that he had found the vodka.

  “Drink, tovarich!” he said, happily. “We are alive and that is more than either of us should expect, da?”

  I took the offered bottle and downed a mouthful of the fiery liquid. When it hit my stomach, I felt the fire spread outward throughout my body. Despite myself, I sighed with contentment. I wasn’t normally a vodka man, but this time it felt wonderful. It was just what the doctor ordered to make me feel better.

  “Spasiba,” I said, handing him back the bottle.

  “Puzhalsta,” he replied. “You speak Russian?”

  “I think I just used all I know,” I replied, smiling.

  “Is no problem,” he said in his thick accent. “My English, it is very good.”

  I just smiled and nodded. It was good enough. It was certainly better than my Russian, which was terrible. At least we could understand each other. If we couldn’t do that, then we’d be reduced to playing charades for even the simplest of tasks. I was glad that we didn’t have to.

  “Tell me about your comrade,” I said, pointing to the still unconscious astronaut on the deck.

  “She is fellow cosmonaut,” he said, grinning broadly. “Not comrades, anymore. The communists are gone.”

  “Fair enough,” I replied, returning the grin.

  He took another swig off of the vodka and handed it back to me. I briefly considered not taking it, but under the circumstances I thought it couldn’t hurt. The second drink felt better than the first one. It was just enough to take the edge off of my pain and made me feel considerably better.

  “Her name is Irina Petrovna Korolenko,” he explained. “She was the team astrophysicist. It was her that first noticed the meteor shower.”

  “I saw that,” I said, “a few nights ago. I watched your ship enter atmosphere.”

  “Da, that was bad night,” he said. “We lost eight of our crew trying to escape the impact.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, grimacing. “That must have been tough.”

  “It was,” he assured me. “We had been tracking the wolves for months, but we didn’t realize that the debris field would arrive before they did.”

  “Wolves?” I asked. “What wolves?”

  “It was the name given to the two comets that we had been monitoring,” he explained. “It is rare to see them in groups, so Irina started calling them a pack of wolves.”

  “Are they going to hit us?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

  “We do not think so,” he replied, frowning. “Irina thinks that they will likely hit the moon, though.”

  “What will that do?” I asked, sitting up.

  “The impact will shift the moon’s orbit, but not enough for it to break away from the earth,” he said. “Irina could tell you more, but from what I understand the resulting debris cloud will obscure the moon and sun from our view for quite some time.”

  “How long?” I asked, my blood turning cold.

  “Hard to say for sure,” he said, scratching his chin. “It could be months, or as long as a few years before it all clears away.”

  “Three years,” I said, almost to myself.

  “Possibly,” he said. “What of it?”

  “According to my religion,” I said, softly, “Ragnarok is the end of the world. The Doom of the Gods.”
>
  “Ragnarok?” he said, shaking his head. “You are Viking?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “I’m a Norse Pagan.”

  Shura looked perplexed but didn’t say anything.

  “In my religion, one of the signs of Ragnarok will be when the sun and the moon are devoured by two giant wolves,” I said, frowning. “I always thought it was a metaphor for something, but I couldn’t imagine what. Now, it makes sense.”

  “You think the Vikings predicted this?” he asked, incredulously.

  “It makes as much sense as anything else,” I replied. “There are other signs as well, but the wolves devouring the sun and moon is a big one. When will they hit?”

  “Best estimate puts it at the end of August,” he said, wrinkling his head in concentration. “More than a month away.”

  “That doesn’t give us much time,” I said, almost to myself.

  “You don’t really believe this Viking stuff, do you?” asked Morgan from the other side of the boat.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” I replied, showing her my Thor’s Hammer that I wore around my neck. “It’s the religion of my ancestors.”

  “Isn’t it kind of silly to believe in fairy tales?” she asked, smirking.

  “No more silly than the fairy tale that you believe in,” I replied, starting to get angry.

  “But I’m a…” she started to say, but was interrupted by Sky.

  “And what about my beliefs?” interjected Sky. “Do you find those silly, as well.”

  “Well, no,” said Morgan, backpedaling. “That’s what your people have believed for centuries.”

  “Then how is his religion any different?” demanded Sky. “His people worshipped that way for thousands of years. Like the origins of my people, it predates your religion. How then can it be silly and wrong?”

  “Well…I…uh…I guess, it isn’t,” said Morgan, looking down. “I guess I shouldn’t knock anyone’s religion, even if I don’t agree with it.”