by Njord Kane
Sven gagged and said, "what's that smell? It's awful!"
"Something dead nearby. Keep going, it'll pass." said Bjord as he used his arm to cover his mouth and nose.
Rowan had never smelled anything like it before. He'd once came across a rotting boar carcass in the forest when he was gathering wood. The boar was discolored, bloated, and putrid. It was definitely dead and definitely had been there for a while. It laid in a patch of sunlight that beamed in through a clearing of the trees. It was so putrid, not even the flies wanted it.
The smell in the air now was similar, but way worse. It made Rowan's stomach churn in a most unpleasant way. He tried using his sleeve to cover the smell. It didn't even help.
By the looks on Sven and Bjord's faces, they were just as disgusted and feeling just as green as Rowan was.
The men stopped in their tracks. They were all trying to cover their noses and mouths as best as they could. Bjord looked at them and said, "well,.. [he abruptly stopped to gag] we've indeed found something unpleasant lurking about here. Something's definitely dead near here. I don't think it's any of the sheep. They haven't been dead long enough to rot and smell like that. Plus the other sheep we found didn't smell."
Sven and Rowan both nodded in agreement not wanting to speak and uncover their mouths.
"Whatever it is, it's been dead for awhile. I don't know what would make such a stench, but I don't think I want to find out." Bjord added.
The notion made both Sven and Rowan turn pale as their hearts fearfully sank. They've all heard the stories about the things that supposedly lived in the forest and in the mountains. Places said to be forbidden to men where both unseen folk and beings from the legends were said to inhabit.
In the brush, they could clearly see where the remaining sheep had ran. They ran right through, breaking limbs and everything else in their way, as if they were desperate to escape whatever was chasing them.
The entire way had been this way. It didn't take any real tracking skills to follow the panicking sheep's trail. In this spot, the trail ran right through some dense bushes.
Bjord scratched the back of his head and knelt down to examine the torn bushes. "They must have been cornered and ran right through it." He plucked a piece of wool from a branch and stood back up.
"Yes, I do believe that is what happened. Here's a piece of wool from one of them. They tore through those bushes and made their own path."
Sven and Rowan just looked at each other, not sure what to think about the whole ordeal.
After a moment of kneeling back down and trying to look through the hole in the bushes, Bjord stood up and motioned to Rowan while pointing at the hole, "crawl though there and see if you can tell where they went."
Rowan silently gulped and nodded. He wasn't sure what lie beyond those bushes and whether or not he wanted to meet it face to face while crawling on his knees through some bushes.
He removed the rope he was carrying over his shoulder and set it down on the ground. He got down on his hands and knees and carefully began crawling into the hole in the bushes. He could see light on the other side. It looked like it was quite a few paces from where the sheep had gone in and then busted out on the other side.
Rowan crawled through hole. It was only as high as he was on his knees and barely as wide as his own body. He continued to crawl through to the other side.
When he came out through the other side Rowan got quite the startle as he almost fell.
Abruptly on the other side of the thick bushes and brush that the sheep had ran though was a steep cliff. It was a very steep cliff that dropped for a long way.
Rowan backed up carefully, as not to fall off the side. "There's a cliff at the other end of these bushes!" he shouted.
Bjord hollered back, "what? What do you see?"
'There's a steep cliff that goes down the mountainside," repeated Rowan.
Bjord drew his brows together and wrinkled his forehead, giving Sven a puzzled look.
"Do you see any of the sheep?"
Rowan edged closer to the side and looked over. All he could see was a abrupt decline that fell several ways down into the rocks below. He gasped and safely scooted himself back again. He turned and yelled back, "I don't see them. It falls straight down into rocks. There is no sign of them down there."
Bjord looked down, sighing in his breath and mumbled something about 'thralls.' He looked back up at Sven and said, "go in there and look. Tell me if you can see where the sheep went."
Sven did not want to go in there. Regardless of his daydreaming, he wasn't exactly 'hero' material. But before he could make any kind of protest, Bjord frowned at him and motioned towards the hole torn in the bush.
"Go now boy!"
Sven nodded and removed his bow and leather weaved quiver. He set them down on top of where Rowan had set the rope. He reluctantly knelt down to crawl through the hole and paused a second to look through. He then looked back at his quiver real quick to make sure he had set it down so that none of the arrows would fall out. This was when he noticed that he'd grabbed the wrong quiver.
The quiver he'd grabbed in his haste contained fishing arrows with the arrow heads made from bone. They had small barbs in them and shattered when they hit against anything. They were not the sharp iron tipped arrows for hunting.
He grabbed the bow and arrows in case they came across some wolves or something and needed to defend themselves.
He hoped his father didn't notice his bumble. He seriously doubted that he'd need his bow, but he didn't want to catch hell for grabbing the wrong quiver of arrows.
Bjord grew openly annoyed at Sven's hesitation and kicked him on the rump with the side of his foot. "Get in there boy, stop being a damned coward."
Sven crawled through the passage to where Rowan was knelt down on the other end. He crawled through, tearing a hole in his trouser knee, and knelt next to him.
Sven carefully looked over the edge to see what was there. Rowan grabbed Sven on the shoulder and steadied him as he got near the edge. "Be careful." he said.
He just shot Rowan a dirty look and said, "don't worry thrall, I've got this."
Sven hesitantly looked further over the side and carefully scanned the area below in disbelief. Seeing the rocks below from the sudden long drop, he backed up and looked at Rowan with a look of baffled disbelief on his face.
Rowan nodded in agreement and looked over the side again himself.
Sven backed up from the ledge slightly and called back. "It's true. There's a sudden drop over a cliff at the end of the passage. It's a long drop and there are rocks below. Nothing could survive that kind of a fall."
"Do you see any sign of the sheep?" Bjord called back.
"I don't see any sign of the sheep. It's like they just disappeared. I can't say for sure, but I don't see their bodies anywhere down there."
Puzzled, Bjord angrily cursed under his breath. "Go ahead and come back through. Make sure you look one last time to make sure there's no sign of them. They had to go somewhere. Things don't just disappear in thin air."
"We're coming back out," Sven called back. He didn't need to be told twice to get out of there. He didn't want to crawl through that hole in the first place. And he absolutely did not like being next to that cliff with its sudden drop to a guaranteed death.
Sven began crawling out through the hole with Rowan following closely behind.
When Sven got through, he quickly stood up and quickly began brushing the dirt from his hands and knees before gathering up his bow and quiver.
Rowan crawled out and picked the rope up from the ground, slinging it back over his shoulder.
The air was still thick with a putrid smell from something dead and rotten. Sven covered his nose and mouth with the inside of his arm, trying not to gag. When they had crawled through the hole, the air on the other side was much clearer and didn't reek. It was only when they crawled back that it hit them again.
"What is that smell?" protested Sven to nob
ody in particular.
Bjord answered, "I don't know, but it can't be from the sheep. Even if they'd been dead for a long time, they wouldn't leave behind a stench such as that. This smell is from something that has been rotting for a very long time. It is unnatural."
After a brief moment Bjord decided to continue looking for the sheep. There was no real proof that they ran over the cliff. Although something could have carried them off below, such as wolves or other wildlife. But they also could have seen the cliff and turned around.
He wasn't going to be satisfied unless he'd given the area a proper look.
"Let's go further up the hill and see what we can find out. Maybe the sheep ran up there. The brush is very thick, but we can still get through this way." He indicted which direction by pointing to a less dense area and started walking towards it.
Bjord led the way as they made their way through the thicket up the hill. He used his ax to chop some of tree limbs out of the way to allow for their passage.
The smell of decay was getting even more intense. Sven stopped once when his stomach couldn't handle it anymore and retched out his earlier meal.
Rowan secretly got some satisfaction from observing this. Sven hadn't the common compassion to share his meat and tossed the remainder in the woods. Having an empty stomach now paid off for Rowan. Even though he wasn't sure for how much longer.
Alas they finally got through and came out of the thick brush to a clearing on the other side. On the clearing there was very little brush. It opened up to a clearing that was mostly rocky. Nothing seemed to really grow there and in the middle of it all was a mound of piled river stones and dirt.
The mound also appeared to have been freshly made.
The putrid smell in the air was now worse than ever at the clearing where the mound was. It smelled as if there were rotting corpses all over the place. There was nothing but this barren mound of stone and soil.
Gasping from the stench in the air, Sven asked, "what is this place?"
"I don't know," replied Bjord "it appears to be a burial mound."
"A burial mound?" said Sven in near disbelief. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I know a burial mound when I see one." said Bjord. "But what I don't get is why it's way up here hidden in the forest on the mountain and why the dirt is so fresh. It looks like it was just made."
Rowan just stood behind them, covering his nose and mouth, trying to not get sick from the stench that lingered in the air.
Bjord walked toward the burial mound to inspect it more closely. The other two moved slightly closer behind him, but still kept their distance.
"I don't understand why it smells so bad,' said Bjord as he looked at the mound closely with his eyes visibly starting to water from the offensive smell in the air.
"What do you mean?" asked Sven.
"Well for one, whatever is buried here shouldn't be smelling like this because it's buried," he pointed out "and there's nothing exposed here to make the smell."
Bjord bent down on one knee to get an even closer look at the earth mound, brushing some of the soil on the mound to the side.
"Yes, this soil seems fresh on this." He observed. "Even stranger is whoever made this used river stones."
"So what? Lots of people do that." said Sven.
"Yeah, but not way up here on the mountain side. They had to carry those stones up from a river. Why didn't they just use the rock that was already here?"
It was then when they noticed a heavy mist beginning to form around them. It was originating from the mound itself.
Sven and Rowan exchanged a worried look.
"This is very odd," Sven said. "Mists don't just form out of nowhere and they don't form that fast. Something isn't right about this."
Bjord stood up and looked around. Just as he was about to say something, they all noticed a dark figure standing in front of them on top of the burial mound. It just sort of 'appeared' in the mist.
The smell of death in the air was stronger than it had ever been before.
"What is that?" asked Sven as he gagged from the stench in the air.
"Who's there!" Bjord demanded of the large figure standing in front of him in the mist.
Bjord lifted his battle ax up in front of him. He gripped the handle tightly with both hands and and briefly looked at Sven and said, "get an arrow ready, boy," before looking back at the figure.
The mist was starting to fade away and they were able to get a better look at the figure.
It was twice as tall as a man and bloated twice as wide. Its rotting flesh was pink and purplish blue. with dead white eyes glaring through swollen eyelids.
The smell of decay that came from it was so strong it sickened everyone to a point of actually wanting to drop to their knees and start gagging. It made them want to wretch, but fear from the very sight of this thing prevented any action but gazing at it in horror.
It was the draug, the dead walker that Grandmother Helga warned of.
It stood there for a moment looking at them menacingly before it let out a piercing scream and leapt forward at Bjord.
It pounced on top of Bjord before he could react. Still in shock, even though he had his ax at the ready, it was useless in his hands. Bjord fell to the ground on his back with the creature on top of him.
You could see Bjord's face turning red as he struggled under the weight of the beast. It had him pinned down. Its knee was on his arm and prevented him from raising his ax.
Bjord was pinned and helpless. He was completely unable to defend himself. That was when the ghastly thing brought its huge fist down upon him and smashed him in the chest. The powerful hit made Bjord gasp painfully for air before spitting out some blood.
Both Sven and Rowan stood frozen for a moment with their mouths agape looking on in shock before they were able to react.
Sven, seeing that it was killing his father, grabbed his bow and retrieved one of the bone tipped fishing arrows. He nocked the arrow, drew back and released it into the side of the dead walker.
The beast was so large, it was nearly impossible to miss as the arrow struck its target and pierced deeply into the creature's rotting flesh.
The arrow strike didn't even phase it and it struck Bjord again with its massive fist while letting out a horrifying roar.
Sven released another arrow, piercing it again which also seemed to have no affect on the beast. It was as if the thing didn't even notice the arrows Sven was firing into it.
Rowan was now able to move from the initial shock. He took his small ax from his belt, gripped it loosely on the end of the handle and then hurdled it at the beast.
He was hoping to sink the ax blade deep into the monster's skull. The ax hurdled through the air and swished pass the creature's head, missing completely and fell in the thick brush behind it. Lost forever.
Rowan just stared in disbelief at the brush where the ax fell. He didn't know what made him think he could actually hit the creature with it. He'd never thrown an ax before. He'd seen one of the men from the village throw one into a tree truck and was impressed by it. He didn't considered such a skill would actually take practice.
Now he was disarmed because of his foolish act.
Sven paid no attention to what Rowan was doing and sunk another arrow into the beast. Regardless of yet another arrow finding its mark and sinking deeply, the beast continued to ignore the arrows as if they weren't even there.
The dead walker was in a fury. It continued to strike at Bjord, whom was no longer moving and no longer appeared to even be alive anymore.
Rowan now disarmed and knowing he had to do something, mustered the courage to get closer and try to fetch the large battle ax that Bjord had dropped when the creature leapt upon him.
After taking a quick second to gather his courage, Rowan ran towards the ax. He slid across the ground feet first trying to keep low and out of the beast's reach. As he was sliding past the creature on the dirt and gravel, he managed to grab the battle ax off the ground.
Rowan got back up to his feet and picked up the ax with both hands. It was a large, heavy and solid ax. Gripping it tightly, he raised the ax above his head and then brought it down upon the beast with all his might.
He hit it and sunk the ax's blade deeply into the creature's back.
In contrast to the arrows it ignored that were embedded in its flesh, the creature felt the ax penetrate. It violently roared in pain and turned around, swatting Rowan with the back of its fist.
The blow knocked Rowan back several feet, causing him to tumble hard to the ground.
Rowan had never been hit that hard in his life. He was now dazed from the blow and had the wind knocked out of him. He struggled to get up to his knees as he looked up at the creature. It was violently turning about trying to grab the ax that was stuck in its back.
Sven continued firing his remaining arrows into the dead walker with no affect. The beast was completely unconcerned with the arrows and appeared to ignore them. But the ax embedded into its back definitely had its attention as it continued to struggle trying to reach the ax and pull it out.
When the creature turned its back towards Rowan, he could see that the ax was actually burning the creature's decaying flesh.
He could see around the wound where the ax was stuck in its back and he could see that its flesh was glowing red like a hot iron. There also was some smoke coming from around the wound where the ax was embedded.
It looked like the ax head was actually burning its flesh.
Sven fired his last arrow into it and then threw his bow down on the ground. He grabbed the ax that hung on his belt and armed himself with it.
The beast was still reeling in pain and trying to free the ax from its back.
Sven looked at Rowan and could see that he wasn't armed and was still struggling to get up to his feet after being knocked back so hard from the beast.
Sven knew what he had to do. He mustered all the courage he could and charged at the creature. He swung his ax upon it and sliced it on the arm. The creature released an ear piecing roar and turned to face Sven as he swung his ax at it again. This time only nicking it on the forearm.
This only angered the creature even more. In a fury it reached over and grabbed Sven by the head with its massive hands. Before Sven could react and swing his ax again, it flung him in the air and into the brush near the side of the clearing near the cliff.
