Allun stood up and surveyed the surrounding countryside.
In the distance he could see the Grendel city, but a day’s walk away. He took
his own dagger and cut his arm, letting the blood drip.
“By my blood I swear, You shall be avenged brave Einar,”
he whispered. Then he turned to Giselle and Ellen. “Onto victory and the Realm of the Red Death!”* he
said brandishing the dagger in the air, it glinted and then faded as a cloud
obscured the sun
The Grendel city loomed in front
of them. The trio couldn’t help thinking that it was kinda advanced for Grendels,
or so they thought.
“Is it just me or has the atmosphere
around here changed very much for the worse?” Giselle shivered
“No,” replied Allun, “This place
is distinctly creepy”
“Perhaps that has something to
do with it,” Ellen said pointing to finely crafted archway that looked as
though it was made from Norn and Ettin bones. Allun walked carefully over to it
and found that bones were indeed what the arch was made of. Giselle joined him
and ran her fingers lightly over the inside of the arch. “The workmanship is
amazing,” she said holding out a curtain that was made of ettin skins “The
choice of materials leaves rather a lot to be desired though.
Ellen suddenly felt drained of
energy. She didn’t know why but frankly she didn’t much care. All she was aware
of was that there was a very real chance that would not see another night. She
sighed and joined the other two admiring the handiwork of the Grendels. She
failed to see anything nice about it and soon got irritated.
“Have you two quite finished?”
she hissed
“Well what do you suggest we do
now then?” replied Giselle
“Here’s a novel concept, I really
do not have a clue what we do now.” Ellen answered back
The truth was, she didnt have to
because it was a pair of Grendels that decided that one for her.
*******************************************************************
It wasn’t much point in
struggling because, let’s face it, a Norn is no match for a Grendel. Sure it
was 3 to 2 but even then the Norns were hopelessly outdone. All they could do
was hope that the Grendels would be merciful enough to give them a dignified
death and let them go out fighting, each knew that it was very unlikely. The
Grendel guards had dragged them, bruised and bleeding through the town to the
place where the leader lived, only to be told to take them to the dungeon
because Mortis couldn’t be bothered to torture any Norns just yet, so back
again they were dragged and escourted to a series of underground passages with
small cells branching off.
“What’ll happen to us?” asked
Ellen
The guard smirked. “Well when
His Highness Lord Mortis can bring himself to shift himself he’ll probably
dream up some cruelly satisfying way of getting rid of you all. He’s very
imaginative is our Mortis, no doubt you three will each have an
agonisingly,painfully unique demise.
“A simple ‘you’ll die’ would’ve
sufficed” Ellen answered drily.
The guard lifted her up by the
scruff of the neck and snarled, showing an impressive jawful of teeth. “An’ I
don’t want any lip from you lassie. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner you’re
gone the better an’ between you an’ me, when you die by a Grendel’s claw you
don’t just die... You DIE!!”
He tossed her into a cell and
slammed the door in a great temper. As she watched them disappear into the
blackness, she realised that this was the final curtain. This time tomorrow it
would all be over. She couldn’t think for the life of her what she could do
between now and then that could save Albia like the prophesy had said but,
truth be told, that was the last thing on her mind. It was not the first time
on this mission that she had cried to calm herself down, and she had a horrible
feeling that it would not be the last
***********************************************************************
Ellen didn’t cry for long, I mean,
what good does it do? Sure it makes you feel better to let it all out but at
the end of the the day in a situation like Ellen’s it is almost impossible to
feel better knowing that the Grim Reaper is just around the corner. Watching
& waiting......
“Crud!! What am I doing? This is
utter insanity!” She yelled at herself, “It has never been my style to sit and
wait for things to happen and I dont intend to change that now!” She leapt to
her feet and began trying to yank a few bricks from the wall. Eventually she
noticed the hopelessness of her predicament.
“I’m getting desperate but there’s
nowt I can do. I’m just a fool.” she said to herself
“You’re only a fool if you give
up” rasped a silvery voice. Ellen jumped, startled at this voice out of
nowhere.
“And who are you may I ask?” she
stuttered
The creature stepped out of the
shadows and revealed itself to be a slender, tall Shee (Oh come on! What story
doesn’t have a Shee in it somewhere?)
“My name is Okalokie but that’s
not important right now. You want to know what’s going on yes?”
“‘T would be nice for you to
tell me but don’t feel obliged to tell me anything. I’ve been kept more or less
in the dark for rather a long time now so another day will not kill me.” Ellen
stopped, thought for a moment and started again, “Actually another day is gonna
kill me so unless this is very important I’ve got funeral arrangements to
attend to.”
The Shee got pretty annoyed at
that last remark and continued by saying, “I’m going to tell you anyway whether
you like it or not and you can either take it all in and stand a chance of
getting out of here alive, or if you’d prefer to be the little martyr you can
carry on being the snooty little norn because as it stands that’s all you are.
In another time and place you are a Hand but right here, right now you are just
a Norn and without me you are powerless to change that!”
Ellen smiled. She loved winding
people up. “OK man. Chill. We don’t want you getting high blood pressure do we?”
The Shee slapped her accross the
face.
“You git!” she snarled, “What
was that for?”
“I did it to teach you some
respect and now you are going to sit down and shut up.”
Ellen decided to do exactly what
Okalokie said.
“Now,” he said “we’ve wasted so
much time arguing that I have to cut down on all the fancy bits. Have you still
got the map?”
Ellen handed him the map which
he threw in the air. It span, giving off a
golden glow. Ellen watched it change shape into a sword. The Shee
plucked it from the air and gave it back to Ellen.
“This sword must be used to kill
Mortis, nothing else will do the trick.” he said. With that he disappeared in a
puff of sparkling golden smoke. The typical deity style exit. The divinity of
it was soured slightly because of the unproffessionalism of their argument. She
heard voices in the next cell, Giselle and Allun’s as a matter of fact.
“Guys!” she called, “You in
there?”
“Ellen?” they replied “Yep were ‘ere”
“Hang on I’m gonna bash down the
wall” she said. And she did too.
***************************************************************
They ran down the passageway.
“Now what?” said Giselle and
Allun
“We fight.” answered Ellen
simply, “but I for one am going to give this my all. My end is most seriously
nigh, but one thing’s for God damn sure,” she said with added determination, “If
I must die I’m taking that Mortis guy with me, all the way to Hell!”
