Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XXXIX - Roth

Søren, meanwhile, had begun bandaging Eirik's hand. This Roth barely noticed, for his eyes were fixed at his target; he had already raised his spear. However, he could not throw it. There had been a momentary flash of something ... human amidst the bloodlust that saturated its gaze.

"Throw it, man!" Ragnar was beside him in a matter of moments.

He grabbed the spear from Roth's blood-soaked hand, wet with wiping at his face, and fired it in the very next instant, even as the beast began to clamber away.

It struck the massive, silver back just as the shadows whelmed the creature, effectually concealing it from view. Roth's hesitation, however, had cost them the victory. Or had it? Would Renic die? Had the spear found his heart? Either way, they had wounded him enough that he would likely not assault them again. Not tonight. Perhaps not ever...

Roth fell to his knees. "Renic!" It was said with force, but quiet withal.

Ragnar's lower practically smote him as he beheld his nephew. "Why did you freeze?!"

Why indeed. It was not like Roth to hesitate, after all. When no reply was forthcoming, his uncle marched away to see to Eirik. Ragnar, undoubtably, determined that he had dealt the 'creature' a lethal blow. He could commit his attentions, for the time being, to Eirik now, whose wellbeing was presently in grave question.

His younger uncle's face was white and bloodless — unlike Roth's bloody visage — as he huddled by the fire. With a cursory look towards the edge of darkness, Ívarr plunged his sword into the embers and watched as the iron began to glow an ominous red. Deeming the metal fiery enough, he brought it over to Eirik.

"Wait!" Ragnar passed Aila's brother his horn of ale and nodded as the younger man drank off every drop.

That done, he gave Eirik a leather thong to bite down on and then stepped back as Roth's grandsire applied the smoldering iron, before Eirik even had a chance to brace himself. He was leaning back against's Søren as his stertorous breathing and guttural cries rent the eerie peace. It was an awful sound, mingled with the smell of burnt flesh and the coppery tang of gore — both Eirik's and Roth's.

There was no palliative for this type of pain, but death. At least not until they were home once more. Epona could thence tend to his wound.

And what would they find on the morrow? Would Renic's cold and stiffened body meet them when dawn light revealed his brother's whereabouts, shoulder rived and body riddled with arrows? The killing spear still jutting from his lifeless heart?

Roth pushed his bleeding, tattered face into the black rocks, his tears stinging the gaping wounds in his jaw. "Brother," he whispered, licking the blood and tears from his lips. Do not let them take him from me, Loki!

Day break eventually came, but none of them had slept. Ívarr, who had long ago learned enough of healing from Elfa, had, by then, bandaged his own broken ribs, cauterized his son's gaping wound, and then pulled the flesh over the exposed joint to close the ragged edges with needle and silk.

As to Roth's face, and no doubt as a result of the poison, the deep lacerations would not close as they might have done had he been ... himself. Once his grandsire had flushed the blood out of the way with cold, sea water, he examined the injury and said, "Well, you'll live, but you shan't be as pretty as your brother."

At the casual mention of Renic, Ívarr grew shamefaced and quiet. He too was, obviously, as convinced of Renic's death, as Ragnar was. Certain, too, that he would not reach Valhalla, seeing as he had not died in battle. It was torturous summations all around. 

Thus it was, and with silent concentration, that he plied his already bloodied needle and silk to Roth's clenched jaw. It was there, he'd said, that the worst of the damage was wrought. When he was done, he examined his efforts proudly.

"You pretty nearly lost an eye, my boy," said Ívarr. With Roth's blood still coating his fingers, he painted five lines from the top of his left temple diagonally across his own brow, lip, jaw and neck.

By this grim pastiche, he now afforded Roth a clear idea of what he had sustained. It was far clearer than any reflection might have been; and far more lurid. A macabre sort of mirror. The innermost line bisected his left brow, the side of his nose, and, finally, his lips. It was the worst of the five scars he would likely always wear.

Still and all, he had not lost an eye. Not like Odin had. And his would not have been a noble loss either, for he was not even sure he'd saved his brother.

He cleared his throat, searching their campsite. "Where is Ragnar?"

"He and Søren followed the blood trail that lead up the mountain."

"Without me?!" His uncle had not left him behind in consideration of his wounds either. Fatal blows were nothing to warriors — even Eirik would have continued fighting regardless of his amputation had not Ragnar already felled the ... felled Renic.

It was because he had hesitated. Ragnar would have seen that as weakness.

Ívarr shrugged, but shortly glanced up as Ragnar and his son reappeared with the missing arrows and Roth's spear. "There was no sign of it's body," said he.

"We failed to kill it?" Roth could not forbear the hopeful inflection, and it was not lost on Ragnar.

"See for yourself!" Ragnar dropped the spear onto his nephew's lap and watched as Roth raised the tip for closer inspection, dabbing at the dried blood with his questing tongue.

"Organ blood." No!

"Yes. If it lives, it will not live much longer." Ragnar knelt beside him and regarded his scars before fixing his eyes to Roth's. "Why did you call out Renic's name? You failed to kill it when you had the chance; and you called out for your brother. Why?"

Roth, undaunted by Ragnar's suspicion, brought his face closer to his uncle's. "Because that creature," he said, nodding in the direction whence the thing had disappeared only a few hours ago, "devoured my brother." And, truly, it was no word of a lie. Renic had been consumed, in a manner.

"Perhaps." Was all Ragnar said, his gaze softening only slightly.

"We must leave now," said Ívarr, watching as Roth pushed himself to standing. "We cannot spare the time to search for it."

The smallest movements still required such effort, and it still enraged Roth no end that he had barely the strength of an old woman, let alone that of a man. Far better that he had been the Fenris Wolf and bound himself somehow, somewhere, than that he'd taken that foul bane as his brother had exhorted him to do. Nevermore would he do so hence.

The gods, curse you, Brenna! I won't touch your wolfsbane again!

Yet he would to Odin that Renic had done so. Or, better yet, had not succumbed to the rockslide! Renic. His other half. Whereas Roth favored his left hand, Renic favored his right; so, in truth, they really were, and always had been, the perfect, mirror images of one another.

But no more. 

Now they would forever be distinguishable. If indeed his brother still lived. He was not sure if it was the wolfsbane or ... something more sinister, but he could no longer feel Renic's presence inside himself. It was as though whatever root that had anchored them at birth had finally been severed.

No more than an hour later, the wind was once again filling his large, square sail. They were finally returning, and with considerable losses to each of them.

"If Renic lives," said his grandsire, joining him at the stern as he stared off at the fading beach, "then he will find his way home. Mayhap even before the blizzards come."

Roth nodded, his manner distrait. "Mayhap."

But Renic did not arrive that winter. And nor was he home by the next.

🌟Hmm, penny for your thoughts?🌟