Book 7: Chapter 34: Fangs
Martel and Eleanor found each other with worried looks passing between them. “Wounded?”
She shook her head and glanced down. “Your leg.”
“Not bad.” With the blood rush from the fight at an end, the pain returned, but it felt an insignificant price to pay. “Just needs a bandage.”
They both smiled with relief and shared a prolonged embrace before surveying the battlefield. Besides the enormous carcass of the monster, at least two Tyrians had fallen, possibly three. They walked over, one supporting the other, to reach Halfrid and Rolf.
The berserker lay with grievous burns covering half her face and going down her neck, shoulder, and arm on the right side. Rolf mumbled words, drawing runes on her body with blood before activating them. They watched in silence, afraid to intervene and neither able to aid. Nothing in Martel’s alchemy could heal such damage done to the human body. He wondered if even the best of Mistress Rana’s elixirs could.
Halfrid gasped and flung her eyes open, staring in shock before she took a deep breath and laughed. “I’m alive, and the wyrm is dead!” She propped herself up onto one elbow, still cackling.
“You’re welcome,” Rolf mumbled, himself falling back to sit on the ground with an exhausted expression. “Let’s never do this again.”
Silently, Martel agreed.
The other Tyrian, who turned out to be Asger, could not be saved. Normally, he would be buried in a mound, but given the circumstances, their exhaustion, lack of tools, and everything else, they decided to cremate his body instead. None of them had the fortitude to cut out the other warrior from the insides of the wyrm, and they decided to simply burn the entire carcass, turning all of it into a funeral pyre. But before they could make the preparations, Halfrid brought her axe against the mouth of the wyrm, breaking free both of the fangs. “I didn’t come all this way to leave without a trophy,” she explained with a grin.
“Some might dispute your claim to those teeth,” Rolf remarked, and though his voice was calm, it had an edge to it. “You didn’t fight alone nor strike the blow that felled the beast.”
The berserker glanced at the others with a clenched jaw before she relaxed. “One fang for the Asterians, and one for the Tyrians. That seems reasonable.” She looked at Rolf and added a sentence in their own language.
The skáld raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Keep it. I came for the tale, not a trophy,” he replied in Asterian.
Halfrid gave him a pointed look before she handed over one of the teeth to Eleanor. “Here you are. Take it with you when you leave Tyria, and tell them of the Raven tribe.”
Martel looked at the curved fang, as big as his lower arm. He already wondered at the alchemical properties it might have. Given how far north these wyrms lived, he felt certain that Mistress Rana had never seen one, but perhaps she had ideas. If they returned to Morcaster some point, he would have to discuss this with her.
Eleanor elbowed him. “You can extinguish that greedy look in your eyes. We are not grinding this to dust – this will be given a place of honour in our home.”
Something Martel had never thought about; what the future looked like beyond their wanderings. Well, they would have plenty of time to discuss that. For now, he was simply happy they had both survived and come out victorious.
Martel collected the remains of his staff, little more than kindling. It had served him well for years, through wars and other tribulations. After removing the ruby at the head, he threw the remainder into the defanged mouth of the snake, where they had also placed Asger; Halfrid and Eleanor found some firewood from the destroyed trees nearby and stacked them up against the body. As Rolf began to sing a lamentation, Martel released a ray of fire to ignite all of it, and with a little extra effort, the pyre was lit.
The locals in the northernmost village seemed surprised and relieved at seeing the heroes return; not that Martel thought they cared much about a pair of Asterians, but their victory meant that no vengeful monster would descend upon the villagers. Instead, they prepared a modest feast with the food they could spare, and Rolf gave a merry performance that fit the mood. Nobody gave a thought to those who had died, and despite her disfigurement, Halfrid seemed the merriest of all. And after the last fiveday, travelling toward this fight with fears of the outcome burdening him, Martel felt the same. He drank and laughed, ensured the bonfire burned brightly, and enjoyed himself.
They continued onward in the morning, following the same trail toward Svartheim as when they had left the small city. They set a good pace during the day and rested at night. Unlike their outgoing journey, conversation around the campfire flowed more freely. Both Martel and Eleanor felt comfortable enough to converse, and Halfrid was in high spirits, boisterous like Martel expected a berserker to be.
Rolf was the exception; the skáld remained silent whether walking during daylight or sitting by the fire after nightfall. It struck Martel as strange; a tongue-tied bard was a contradiction unto itself, and he could think of no good cause why Rolf should be dismayed. He had one more tale to tell, witnessed by his own eyes; there could hardly be another skáld in Tyria to rival his stories at this point.
If something ailed Rolf, Martel decided against asking. He could feel himself being ready for a return to Aster; they had spent more time in Tyria than he had expected, fighting the wyrm had not been part of the original bargain, and he longed for solitude, besides Eleanor, naturally.
Rolf raised no arguments either that explained his mood, and the company continued their journey, day after day, until the earthworks of Svartheim greeted them, with the fjord between the mountainsides glistening in the sunlight beyond.