Big Dog [ONC 2022]

6

A man fell to the ground before her, helmet cleaved in two, as was most of his skull. Lifeless eyes fell upon her, bordered by dirty blonde hair and a full, well-groomed beard and moustache. His dead fingers fell open and a blood-stained war axe fell from them. Runa felt almost certain she could see a tuft of hair stuck to the sharpened edge.

"Within the realms of men, war is nothing but certain and inevitable. It is within the nature of both mortals and gods."

She tried to scramble away, still in her soft, comfortable pyjamas, mud beginning to cake the knees as she tried to scramble over mounds of grass peeking from ground turned and flattened by booted feet. All around, the sounds of battle assaulted her ears. Metal clashing against metal and wood and bone and flesh. Cries of defiance, and hatred, and pain and suffering filled the air, to the point where Runa could not take any more.

She realised that her screams had not stopped. They had joined with and mingled with the sounds of war that sounded as though they would never end. And then she heard the flapping of great wings, of a horn sounding in the distance and, as she looked upwards, she saw the wings that had made that flapping sound, attached to the shoulders of a beautiful white horse, blotting out the light of the Sun. And, there, upon the winged horse's back, sat a powerful, glorious looking woman, a spear in her hand, leading the dead on to their rewards.

"A nature that also breeds the most vile of diseases within the filth of their own making. No-one, mortal or god, is immune to the ravages that invade the body."

It became as black as night and the abrupt silence left a terrible feeling of despair within Runa. Except, it was not completely silent. In the dark, she could hear the sounds of children. Not laughing and screeching as all children should, but sniffling and coughing. Crying. She reached out to find a mud-filled wooden wall against her fingers and she used that to lead her way.

When she came upon those that made the sounds, she almost vomited, her hand rising to her mouth. Dozens of people lay upon the filth covered floor, where no-one had attempted to clear away the human waste. Men, women and children, all huddled together. Gaunt, wasting away, dressed only in filthy rags, skeletal fingers clutching at each other, themselves. Pus-filled boils upon exposed skin, threatening to burst at any moment.

Only one woman appeared unaffected by this plague that had fallen upon these people. An old crone of a woman, a hooded, trailing black robe fell across the dead and dying. In her hand she held a broom that she swept above the bodies upon the floor. Then the old crone turned to Runa and Runa could see an infinite blackness within her ancient eyes.

"Even the natural travails of the mortal realm are but the restlessness of the World Tree, herself. All has happened before, as it should."

She clamped her arms around herself as the biting cold gripped her. A snowstorm raged about her, whistling wind carrying the flakes of snow, sending them flying in all directions, cutting at her skin like frozen knives. Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyelids became encrusted with ice and, in the background of the raging storm, she heard dozens of solid, heavy thumps and the ground shook beneath her knees.

A shadow passed across her and her head snapped up to see a leg the height of the tallest of trees pass above her. A leg of cold, blue and white ice that fell back to the ground, causing it to shudder once more. Another leg followed and she saw a grotesque creature of ice moving away from her, icicles for a beard. To both sides, others walked their thunderous, inexorable footsteps towards something that she could only see through gaps within the storm.

A tree. An enormous tree, a thousand miles high and as wide again, with branches that once held fruit and green leaves. Branches that were now bare of life, blackening and rotting. The entire tree shivered in its death throes and the entire ground shook again with even greater energy, almost toppling the giants of ice from their feet.

"Nothing more can be done for immortal Yggdrasil. She sees the end of all things and she shakes her fronds and roots in silent tears. Soon, all shall come to an end, before it can begin once more. So it was written long ago. The gods care nothing for the mortal realm, save using it as their ground for battle."

"No! It can't!" She shouted to the heavens, even as she felt herself pulled away from the storm and the enormous tree. "It can't end like this! There has to be another way. A better way. There are billions of people on the Earth!"

"Billions and nothing. Perhaps, should the ancient prophecies not become fulfilled. Had we spoken only days before, I would think that impossible, if not for a momentary act of kindness. If not for a simple question. 'Why?'"

It felt as though something carried her for a great distance, passing above, around and through different places. Different times. Different realities. She passed above an ancient forest that hovered in space, roots growing into nothing. She flew around fields of ice that stretched to infinity. Floated beneath fiery mountains that spewed molten gold and lead and iron.

Then she saw a glittering city that sat within an orb of light, above and beyond everything else and she saw, once again, that spreading tree. Only now, the tree held life, far more life than existed anywhere in the universe or beyond. Its bows fell across the orb of light and the city within. Runa found herself drawn to that city at greater and greater speed until everything became a blur until it simply ... stopped.

And she gazed upon the face of a terrible, angry, one-eyed god that held a golden spear in one hand and two ravens upon his shoulders. And the god could see her.

"You are not ready, daughter of the North. Not yet. Not for him."

She snapped awake, reaching for her bedside lamp, but she had no need. Rays of light curled around the edges of her curtains and she realised she had slept all the way through the night. She clutched her pyjama top and her fingers came away soaked with sweat. A dream. Nothing but a terrible dream and, what with the world as it was, she couldn't feel surprised she had had such a horrifying, vivid experience.

With a shiver at memories of the dream, she headed to the bathroom where she had a quick shower, a brush of the teeth and other, natural, duties, before heading downstairs to prepare for the day. She dreaded it, truth told. She didn't want to see what else could go wrong in the world. What other suffering people would have to withstand.

As she moved down the hallway, past the living room, to the kitchen, she stopped. Once again, her foot had caught upon a shoe. A regular occurrence, yes, as Stigr never understood the need to put away his shoes tidily. Only, this time, it made her more angry than usual. The shoes were now covered in mud and sand. Stigr's and Hertha's.

They had gone outside without her permission. At night.