“Well, I don’t love you either, Ellie. I lust for you; there is a difference,” Bard says. “And what better way to get my revenge on Frey than to have you in my bed every night.”
“You think Frey is dead,” I growl out more.
“And if he is, he can see me fucking his mate in Valhalla. And if he isn’t, well he is going to be one angry man when he comes home,” Bard says.
I toss the silver coin back at him, and I hiss trying to calm myself down before I really do kill him, “I will never ever sleep with you or take your money or marry you. You can screw off. Your revenge is stupid.”
“Stupid?” he asks, laughing as he rubs his chin. “He killed my friend, who was like a brother to me. I will never forget.”
“Well, maybe it is time you forget,” I say, and I go to turn my horse around, but my arm is grabbed, and I’m forcefully yanked to the ground.
I let out a startled yelp, and I am tossed on the ground. Bard’s eyes are predatory as he stares at me and he hisses out, “You...a stupid English whore helped kill him. You lead him straight to his death. Just like how my father was killed by your people, you killed him! You should be held responsible just like Frey is!”
I stare at him, my face crinkled in a sneer as I am quick to stand on my feet despite the fact my arm is throbbing from his rough yank. “Just forget about it, Bard! I know it is hard, but you can’t let revenge cloud your entire judgment like this.”
“Just marry me, you whore! Everything can be over if you do!” he growls out, stalking towards me, and it is then I take out my bow after backing away. I go to align my arrow, but he quickly runs towards me.
Before I get a chance to finish, he grabs both my wrists and squeezes with inhuman strength, and I cry out in pain, forced to drop everything.
From there he pushes my back against a tree, and I kick at him violently not liking being pinned. He growls at me, and he lets go of one of my wrists to grab my leg. I ball my fist, punching him in the jaw.
Again, I hear an animalistic growl leave his throat and he hisses, “I’m going to break your fucking leg if you continue!”
He applies enough pressure on my thigh for me to get the hint, but I continue to thrash, and my hand quickly reaches towards my lucky dagger.
I rip it from my belt, but he already sees the attack coming, and lets go of my leg to take my arm in his hand. He twists my arm at an awkward angle until I let go of the knife.
I scream, the knife landing on the ground just like my bow, leaving me weaponless against the wolf man.
He pushes against my arm that is twisted at an awkward angle, making tears run down my face and it is then I take my head and smash it against his harshly, this being my last resort move.
He howls in pain, letting me go, and my forehead starts throbbing. As he backs up, he holds on to his head in pain, temporarily stunned. I use this perfect chance to attack.
I immediately run towards my bow and arrows that I primarily use for hunting wild animals, snatching it up and off the ground. I then place the arrow on the string and pull it back and aim it at Bard once I get to a far enough distance.
Not thinking, and fear coursing through me at being attacked, I see him as no more than a wild animal at this point—a giant and ugly rat.
I then look towards him, and he growls at me once again and goes to charge and hurt me, and I let go of the arrow—my target, the lungs just like the many deer I have hunted.
It shoots him straight through the chest, and I remember Frey’s words about a simple shot with a bow not being able to harm their kind.
Bard gasps in shock and grabs at his chest. His breathing is shaky, and he reaches around carefully, pulling the arrow out from within his chest from the back after breaking the end of the arrow off.
He coughs up blood and collapses on to one knee, his eyes staring at me with hatred.
I quickly run towards the direction of my horse but find she is long gone. When I was thrown off her, she must have run off, and I didn’t even take notice, my focus on Bard.
I panic, and I reach for another arrow on my back. I string another one and reshoot him in the chest all the while backing up as I turn towards Bard again who goes to stand up.
Another arrow sticks out of his chest and blood dribbles down his chin. His shirt looks like it has a red flower in full bloom.
Then I do another...
And another...
And another...
Until I reach for another arrow, and there is no more, and I then realize multiple arrows are sticking out of his chest, and he goes to transform into a wolf.
His face begins to change, taking another shape all the while his bones crack and pop into place as he continues to growl at me. His clothes begin to tear as he no longer has the shape of a human but a devil, a very hideous one.
His transformation is slow, and from what I can assume it is because of all the damage that has been dealt to him, and I just know now if he does successfully transform, he would most definitely kill me.
I throw down my bow, and I walk towards him who is still half changed, and he looks hideous the way he is now.
His face half human, half wolf, while his back is curved, and parts of his flesh were ripping at the seams as he tries to channel his inner beast. I can see the beginnings of tan fur darkened with blood spilled from these tears where flesh parted.
And now, Frey isn’t here to protect me. I quickly pick up a heavy rock by the woods, and I scream as I slam it over his head. What I hear next sounds like an apple being crushed under someone’s foot.
His head wobbles back and forth as blood pours from this deep crater. I can see white glinting through the red and gray. I know this is his skull, and it was shattered where the stone had met his head.
I hear his last breath, a pained one, and I feel it against my hands. I want to scream. I want to take back what I did.
His body slowly slouches to the ground, the blood continuing to pour from his head wound, and I see one of his eyes half wolf and half man fill with blood.
His tongue lolls out of his open mouth, looking like a wolf’s tongue as drool slips from his mouth as well as where his tongue formed a dip collecting blood and spit. Streaks of red mix in with the clear color of the saliva and helps to color the bright green grass a dark red.
I fall back as I stare in horror at what I did and I look at what used to be Bard’s skull. His half-transformed body lies on the ground, unmoving.
I then look down at my pants, and I see a chunk of what looked like a gray piece of a brain on my pants.
I suddenly feel hot bile come up my throat, and I vomit everything that I had eaten on to the ground next to his body, continuing to heave everything remaining in my stomach.
During this entire time, I fail to hear the horn being blown in the village, meaning a boat had been spotted and was moving into the fjord with some visitors.
Chapter 15
Scars & Comfort
I look down at my shaky hands, bruises long since formed around my wrists and in the distance, I can hear loud voices and cheers coming from the villagers.
After staring at my shaking hands, I look up towards the body once more.
Bard...he is really dead. This is a reality, and I am his killer...I murdered him so viciously, and I also murdered his friend indirectly. If my God and heaven are truly real, I will surely be going to hell. I push myself away, my heart slamming in my chest, and my body continues to tremble.
I feel sickened, and tears stream down my face. My stomach twists and turns, and despite the fact Bard and I were never on good terms, I keep remembering him when he was just a boy.
A boy who was a bully no doubt, but at the same time, he was saddened by the loss of his father, mother, and a close friend and took it out on me.
He was lost and alone. He had no one, and I even took the last true friend he ever had away from him, I led him straight to his death...and now I have taken the life of Bard himself.
; I shot him, and despite the fact I had injured him so severely, I kept going and I dealt the final blow with the rock.
I stand up, my legs shaking and wobbling almost like a newly born deer. I grip my legs, my fingernails curling into the flesh in an attempt to get myself to stop shaking.
Death is natural. I have been taught that by the Vikings here.
They think of death as a celebration almost, but to me, death is no celebration.
Valhalla is what they call their heaven...they will drink, eat, and fight with their gods once dying. They will also reunite with their lost loved ones.
I don’t believe Bard is partying with his gods right about now. I don’t know where Bard is truly. He could be lost...wandering a dark oblivion, not knowing who or what he even is.
I think of death as nothing but darkness. Your life ends, you immediately don’t recognize yourself, and you are lost in that darkness.
You are no longer a human, you don’t breathe air, you don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t have a vessel any longer, and eventually you don’t think.
Well, Bard wasn’t a human anyway, so he and his wolf must have parted ways. They were two souls in one vessel, I have come to that determination from the stories they told in the mead hall and Noma as I laid in bed every night.
Just as I think that, I see a gray wolf out of the corner of my eye, and I immediately turn thinking I have been seen by one of the villagers.
My heart stops, and the gray wolf is blurry from the distance I am currently at. I blink and when I blink the wolf steps forward toward me, its steps slow, but eventually it gets closer and closer, and I begin to step back before the gray wolf stops at Bard’s body.
It growls at me, curling its lips, until eventually it leans its head down and begins to eat the dead body and I don’t know why I feel like I must stay and watch the gruesome act.
My eyes widen at the scene as the wolf starts on one of the legs until eventually, it starts tugging and chewing trying to rip the body apart. It tosses up a chunk of meat it had ripped from Bard’s leg before swallowing it, and the more I watch it, I lose track of time.
It is then I come to recognize the wolf as just a normal wild animal and not a shifter. A shifter’s eyes were expressive. They were bright. The wolf here had dull eyes, and they kept shifting between its current meal and me, a threatening growl leaving its throat every time I moved even an inch.
It continues to work at Bard’s leg until I begin to see white, and it devours more, breaking bone and tearing muscle and tendons between its teeth.
I then look and move away from the wolf, my mind currently not all there and I can still hear the squelching of flesh every time the wolf chews on what used to be Bard’s leg.
My mind travels as I slink off into the woods, my hand gliding across the trees’ rough bark, these being the very forest I had first met Bard.
Never had I thought the first time I saw him, I would be murdering him. The moment of his death keeps replaying over and over. The sound, the sights, and the smell of flesh and blood.
I will never get used to something like this...Even when the Vikings first infiltrated my kingdom and I witnessed many deaths, and the time Frey gutted that boy, this could never compare.
I truly don’t know what his intentions were with me the moments before his death. All I can assume is that he wanted to break me, and by breaking me, he wanted to rape me. Through his eyes which I looked directly into the moment he pinned me to that tree, I felt in danger.
They were wild—he wanted to hurt me, he wanted to touch me....He wanted revenge on Frey, and when Frey was no longer here, he sought me as the target of his anger.
Frey...I wonder did he make it back home safely?
I recall hearing the sound of the horn blowing right after Bard’s death. That had to be Frey and the others...right? Or were they guests from another neighboring land...or were they invaders?
No, I don’t think they are invaders. I heard cheers coming from them not too long ago. Frey and the others must have finally returned home after their four-year journey.
I stop at one of the trees, my hand letting go of the bark and sliding down it before I press my back up against it feeling secure in the small corner of the forest.
I slump down before my butt hits the ground, and I rest my head more against the tree.
As I stare up, I see the tops of the trees moving, light peeking between the branches and with each soft gust of wind, the leaves blow back and forth, moving shadows across the forest floor.
I breathe in and out, but when I shut my eye in an attempt to try and erase the current events from my mind, I replay the moment I bash in Bard’s skull, and I cradle my head into my hands.
The way his eye filled with blood, the way his last breath hit my hand. The way a chunk of his brain got on my pants...and the way that wolf started to eat his body...or was the wolf all my imagination? Was I going crazy?
Why can’t I erase what I have done? If I hadn’t followed him, tracked him down, I would be busy greeting whoever it was who came into the fjord. Curiosity fills me at who it might be, and if it is Frey’s crew, I wonder who is alive that I know and who is dead.
Hot tears stream down my face, and I don’t know how to stop them. They just keep rolling down my cheek one after another, and I cry soundlessly.
Even though Bard was trying to hurt me, I still feel sadness over his death...I am pathetic, truly. I shouldn’t be so emotional.
If I hadn’t killed him, I could have gotten raped or worse. Bard was so focused on revenge for his friend that he might have just snapped one day and killed me.
I try to soothe myself, thinking it is for the better he is dead, but I am not God. I do not decide when death is going to be for a person...but perhaps this is what Bard’s Gods had in store for him....perhaps he was meant to die here.
I rub my wrists, and it feels like hours go by with me thinking solely of Bard’s death. It’s like time has stopped and eventually the sun lowers in the sky, signaling hours have passed, but I do not move, stuck within my own head or perhaps dazed.
It is then I hear a rustling, and a voice calls my name.
“Ellie...?′
I turn towards the voice, and I see Margaret standing there looking at me with worried eyes.
“Is everything ok?” she asks hesitantly, walking towards where I was sitting.
I tear my eyes away from her, and I look down at the ground. I then reply after clearing my throat, “Yes, everything is fine. What is it that you want?”
Why did I say everything is fine when it isn’t? I don’t understand my logic, but right now, I don’t even understand myself. Why did she even care about my well-being? She said she hated me...
She walks towards me before kneeling down to my level, and she replies, “I was told to go search for you by Runa. The men and women have returned from their trip from England. Frey, your husband, wants to see you, so Runa told me to come find you after directing me to where you were last seen going.”
She then looks around the woods before she says, “It took me forever to find you. I thought you were training until...” She looks at me, pausing temporarily before she continues, “I saw you...”
I look at her questioningly, and she then asks, “You have blood on you...What happened, Ellie?”
My eyes widen slightly, and I look down at my clothing to find I have specks of blood scattered everywhere, and I then rub at my face finding there too I have blood, it smearing on my hands.
I am covered in Bard’s blood...some of it dried, some still fresh.
“I was hunting.” I automatically lie, fearful of what she might think of me if she knows I have killed somebody.
I shouldn’t have lingered, I should have fled...
“You weren’t hunting,” she states. “Where is your horse?”
“I don’t know,” I sputter, losing my composure, my chest rising and falling in panic.
She then grabs my arm, and as
she stands, she urges me to copy her, to which I do.
“Tell me what happened,” Margaret mutters in a low voice. “I promise you, I won’t tell a soul. I swear on our savior’s son I won’t, Ellie.”
I am hesitant and as she guides me through the forest I fall silent, pursing my lips tightly together.
“I saw the body,” she states abruptly.
My heart stops, and my lips part. I glance at her, not knowing what to do or say.
“You can tell me, Ellie,” she says. “You can trust me...Now, what happened?”
I reply to her after what feels like minutes toll by. “I killed him...” I turn my gaze to the ground after I confess my sins to her.
“Who?” she questions.
“Bard,” I reply. I then say, raising my voice before she thinks I did it for no apparent reason, “He attacked me first! I wouldn’t have killed him if he didn’t threaten to hurt me. I felt like I was going to be violated or harmed if I let things go on. He even threatened to break my leg.”
“I see,” she mutters. “Well, it’s all over now. I have to bring you back to Runa and afterward get you cleaned up.”
I then ask her, feeling a chill run down my spine, “Do you think the villagers will figure out I killed him? Will I be killed in return?”
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “It depends on who saw you or what they know about the situation.”
I then mutter, “Just Runa...and Adisa knows. Do you think he will tell once he realizes Bard’s disappearance or murder?”
“Adisa?” she questions.
“Langley,” I say, remembering he is only called his Viking name here, “The butcher who sells meats and furs.”
She is quiet before she asks, “What does he know?”
“He knows I was after Bard because of a dispute about hunting...Oh God, he’s going to think I killed Bard because of it,” I say panic swelling in my chest, and I stop at the edge of the forest. Once more I see Bard’s mutilated body, the wolf no longer there.
I start to dry heave and Margaret clings to my side. She rubs at my back, and she says, “Come on. We don’t want to be seen anywhere near the body. You might already be suspected.”
Wolves Among Danes Page 14
