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"Emiel!" he screamed and ran.
The ogre heard the sound and stopped its bloody work. "Ah, human!" it yelled. "Come see your friend, a nice pudding he is now!" it laughed, and shook with pain. A stream of blood poured from its lips.
Ragnar said not a word. His blood boiled and a scarlet curtain dropped before his eyes. Berserk, he fell into the lost god's hands.
* * *
When the red veil lifted he found himself uninjured, at least there were no new wounds he could find, but soaked in gore and drying mud. The ogre was in pieces.
Ragnar gathered what remained of his two friends. He wrapped Emiel in the wizards cloak and carried him beyond the road and into the woods. He found Ted's body and laid him beside his friend, then made a cairn.
At first he covered them with stone, but he could not find enough nearby. He collected the weapons of the dead and buried both his friends beneath a layer of swords, bows, armor and shields, then covered it all in leaves and oerth. He left an ogre skull at their feet and placed a goblin as a pillow beneath their heads. They would rest forever upon their fallen foes.
"I have failed you my friends." Ragnar declared above their graves. "But I swear to you, it will be my death or this giant's. I will see you in Vatun's hall if I am worthy. You must already sit among his valiant company."
* * *
Ragnar Hellson drew the honing stone slowly across the edge of his axeblade. He thought of the foes who had escaped the fight that had taken his friends lives and the giant he still had to kill.
"May their bones pierce its hairy feet." he said to himself. He paused then looked at his blade, then stood and hefted the axe, letting it swing once or twice, catching the light from the late morning sun. He hrumphed in satisfaction.
Turning away from the bright sunlight he let his gaze wander. "No one will sing of this battle." he mused aloud. It wouldn't matter. These southern lands, most deaths went unsung.
****
PART II
Hreidmar's Bane
Geoff was dead. Long years of occupation by the giants and their minions had killed it, but the road was alive. The overgrown track had been tramped down and beaten bare. Giants, ogres, orcs and trolls had passed this way in great numbers.
Skeletons of farmhouses were set off the road in fields which the wild had reclaimed. Ragnar passed them without note. He trudged over the muddy oerth wishing that his horse had survived. A dark cloud hung over his thoughts. From dead horse to slain friends his mind leapt and a small flicker of anger danced redly behind his eyes. He damped it down, saving his rage for any that would bar his path and for the giant at its end.
***
Beneath a mound of oerth and leaves there sounded a clanking and scrape of stone on metal. Clumps fell away as a sword, pommel first, was pushed into the air. More swords lay across the rising blade and they slid aside with the leaves and dirt. Finally a hand gripping a large stone came into view.
Emiel crawled from his grave over the covering of stones and weapons that Ragnar had placed upon him. Like a creature of the oerth he looked, some man-shaped elemental. The mud coated him like a second skin. Only his eyes shown white, but a red, feral glow was at their center.
Still on his belly Emiel turned himself and dug into the small cavity of the open mound. He pulled a thick, cloth robe, the wizard's cloak, from the hole. No stain of blood or muddy smear lay on the cloth. It was as clean as if it had been newly made.
As he drew the robe toward him a sword dropped from a fold of cloth striking the ground point first. 'Sunne' the voice whispered in his head. Ragnar had left him his golden sword. The light inside his eyes took on a glow to match his magic sword.
* * *
(To Be Continued)