Chapter Forty-Nine Felnir #2
The air thrummed with the multiple whistle of many small objects moving too fast to be seen.
Warriors reeled away with blood leaking from deep wounds while others fell dead, their armour offering no protection against the unseen hail.
Felnir flinched as a salvo of objects flitted close to his head to impact a nearby wall.
Pausing to investigate, he recognised one of the projectiles as a shard of bottle glass, another an arrow identical to those littering this road.
A chorus of shouts snapped his notice back to the melee in time to witness Beyorn leading a resurgent charge against the thin line of foemen.
“For the Sea King!” he cried as he plunged into the knot of enemies, his sword a blur.
At first, opponents withered around him, their ranks buckling as the weight of numbers began to tell.
The tight knot of red-faced combatants was forced back, leaving many of their comrades twitching or still on the road as Beyorn continued to reap his deadly harvest. Felnir’s company was only twenty paces short of the fight now.
He called out to increase the pace, keen to extinguish this resistance before it cost him more lives.
Yet, before he could land a blow, the foemen repeated the same manoeuvre.
As one they retreated a single step then knelt, revealing the sight of an unarmed young woman, her hair a striking shade of red.
Felnir had seen many expressions cross many faces during battle, from terror, to rage, to the serene acceptance of imminent death.
But he had never witnessed such a depth of vengeful hatred as he did on this maiden’s face.
She said something as she raised her arms, the words unheard above the cries of the wounded and the tramp of boots, then Felnir felt a great hammer slam into his chest. There came a brief moment of weightlessness before he connected with the edge of a wall.
His teeth clacked and he felt a sundering of something within him.
As he slumped to the ground, the iron sting of blood filled his mouth, followed swiftly by a nauseous wave of pain.
Groaning, he rolled onto his knees, hearing once again the whistle of flying objects.
Looking up, he saw Beyorn flailing amid a swarm of debris.
Already pierced in several places, he kept swinging his sword as if trying to bat them away.
His struggle came to an abrupt end when a shard of tile struck him in the throat, followed an instant later by a nail that impaled itself in his forehead.
Gasping out a red tide, Beyorn Arynkrayl sank to his knees to cast a last look at the king he had served.
Even at the end Felnir saw no doubt in his gaze, only the same absolute devotion tinged with satisfaction.
Watching Beyorn fall and lie still, Felnir was forced to accept that this was a man who had died content.
As the blizzard of detritus ebbed, he looked again at their enemies. The vengeful maiden was sagging now, her cheeks hollowed by exhaustion. Although, Felnir saw the hatred still shining bright in her eyes before her guards stood to reform their protective cordon.
“UP!” Felnir roared to the stunned and prostrate figures around him, casting a spatter of blood from his mouth as he surged to his feet. “GET UP!”
The mingled pain and rage robbed him of other sensations, narrowing his gaze to a red-tinged tunnel leading to the dense file of his enemies.
The Sword of the Altvar blazed brighter than ever in his hand, casting out a flare that had the red-faced warriors before him averting their gaze.
The blazing steel rendered shields to splinters as Felnir struck home, laying about with tireless fury.
Swords and axes raised to him shattered when they met the gods-blessed blade, their owners falling dead a heartbeat later.
Felnir continued to slash and stab until he realised there was no one to fight.
The enemy line was broken and the red-haired maiden stood before him.
Like her protectors, she had raised an arm to guard her eyes from the sword’s glow, but now she lowered it.
Regarding Felnir with undimmed hate and tears streaming from unblinking eyes, she raised her arms once more.
As he charged towards her, Felnir felt a sharp impact below his ribs, then the maiden’s face was inches from his.
Her hatred was gone now, replaced with forlorn, piteous agony.
Blood bubbling from her mouth, she looked down to regard the blazing sword sunken into her chest and guttered out her last few words.
“Lies…” she gasped. “He only… ever told us… lies…” Felnir watched her eyes roll back, then lowered the sword, allowing her slim body to slide clear of the blade.
“My king!” Audheld appeared at his side. Much of her face was veiled in blood from a deep cut on her brow, though her eyes were bright as she took in the sight of the blood leaking from his leather breastplate. “Are you hurt?”
Putting a hand to the hole in his armour, Felnir felt the warmth of the liquid dribbling through his fingers.
It contrasted with the deep and growing chill spreading through his torso.
Together with the painful grind of dislocated bone whenever he moved, it amounted to something he couldn’t allow to distract him now.
“It’s nothing,” he assured Audheld. Wincing, he bent to tear a scrap of cloth from the fallen maiden’s robe, folding it before reaching under his breastplate to apply it to the wound.