Kætil III: Immortal For One Night
The Eighteenth Day of the Fifth Moon, 873 AD.
Dyfed's Warcamp, Hoarsoil Valleys, Scelopyrea.
They'd spent a lot of time together this last month, he and Svaltha. They'd sparred for a good portion of it, and drank for even more. A great many nights had been spent in a red-eyed haze as they inhaled the smoke of burning hemp flowers, the two of them talking well into the hour of the wolf. They'd grown close in the short time they'd known each other, and already Kætil felt as though he wasn't sure what he'd do without her. She was a boundless source of companionship and entertainment, not to mention the fact that she'd been able to sneak him and their friends a few of the moonflowers that the druids used for ritual purposes. He was pretty sure the druids called them 'thornapples', which was odd since they looked nothing like an apple, but to be honest so long as he was able to use them again he wasn't really sure he cared what he had to call them. Fuck, now that had been a fun night; he wasn't sure exactly what had been real and what had been imagined, only that Syren had endured a particularly nasty bout of vomiting afterwards. If anyone asked they'd all been extremely worried after their friend had eaten some bad food, but in truth?
The other three of them, he, Svaltha, and Krai, had been nearly pissing themselves laughing as Syren wailed at some unseen assailant in the shadows. The odd young man had punched him quite hard when he'd heard of that after recovering, but given that he was laughing almost as much as they all had been Kætil was pretty sure there were no hard feelings.
She'd been raised in the druidic order to a full-on druid now, rather than the novice she had been before, and as a result she had a little more freedom when it came to what she did in her day-to-day life. She did have to attend far more meetings with her new equals and old superiors, but he reckoned that was par for the course. She'd need to be getting more involved in the happenings of the druidic orders if she wanted to make anything of her new rank, and by the Raven-God he knew that she did. Not just for herself, he suspected, but also for him and their friends. She was odd like that, Svaltha.
With all that said, she had been acting strange these last few days. This last week, in honesty. She was certainly already a little strange beforehand, what with her hearing the voice of a vengeful god in her head, but then he supposed that if she hadn't been strange then she might not have fit in with the rest of them quite so well.
They weren't exactly normal, after all. All told they formed quite the eclectic band; a woman more skilled in combat than any he'd met who also happened to hear a deity in her mind, a man with an absurdly high pain tolerance and seemingly unending luck, someone who'd attached the bones of his first horse to his armour, and then there was himself. He was obviously the one that stood out the most, what with being marked for greatness by Krakevasil himself and the chosen champion of the druids amongst his father's supporters, but he supposed that at a glance he may have appeared to be the most normal of them all.
But anyway, Svaltha had been acting strange recently. She'd mentioned once or twice that she might be able to help him with increasing his bond with their glorious god through rune carving, and that if he wished it she would speak to a few people to make sure that she could get it right. She said that she knew how to make them more powerful, more potent, than even runes carved on amber.
Ah well, he couldn't dwell on that now. He needed to speak with father.
Walking up to the tent he nodded at the two silent guards at the entrance, both of whom parted to allow him through before moving back into their original positions as he passed.
"My son. It is good to see you."
Kætil nodded at his father, a small smile on his face.
"Father. It is good to see you as well."
Dyfed smiled back at him but said nothing. Kætil didn't mind; father had always struggled a little with showing emotion without at least a small amount of shouting, but he was trying. When his father did eventually find the words to begin there was a look of... something, something Kætil was having a hard time placing, spread across his face.
"Kætil. I do not wish to reprimand you but... well, forget that part. This isn't going to be a reprimand anyway, just a question."
He raised an eyebrow at his father, spreading his hands out as he gestured for the big man to continue.
"You're close to that druid, aren't you my son?"
Kætil stilled for a moment, his mind stuttering to a halt as he tried to piece together a good response. It wasn't like they weren't close, but did he mean like that? Well, that wasn't exactly false either, but it wasn't strictly true at the same time. Anyway, he probably should get to answering father sometime soon.
As he made to open his mouth Dyfed cut him off with an almost strained sigh.
"You needn't say anything, my boy. Your silence says enough. Be careful around her, son. Druids are dangerous things."
Kætil nodded, his mouth suddenly very dry.
"I know, father."
His father looked at him as he responded with what might just have been concern.
"I know you think that you know, but please listen to me. You must be careful now, my son. You are ambitious, just as I am, but you need to be careful around the druids. They will promise you great things, my son, and stoke your ambition to ever greater heights. This is no bad thing, but you need to remain mindful. Ambition is a flame, my boy, but fire burns just as much as it warms. The druids want blood, and they may try and temp you into crossing the river once the enemy are on the run. Do you understand?"
Kætil nodded solemnly.
"I do, father. I will not give chase to the enemy, not across the Isanar. I will not allow a hunger for glory to overtake me. I promise you, father, I will not fail you here."
Dyfed smiled at him kindly, his eyes containing a softness that had been lost to all save only Kætil himself since mother had disappeared.
"You never do, my son. You're a better man than I was when I was your age. You'll do great things, that much the druids have gotten right, but you can't allow yourself to fall into their schemes if you can help it. They mean well, but they will seek to guide you more directly than befits their status."
Kætil stood their, silently. It was no secret that his father was, whilst of course not doubting their piety, not the biggest fan of druids. Nor was it a secret that Kætil had long been favoured by the mystics of the north. He would not argue with his father, but with that same thought he did not wish to engage in a conversation that might disparage his favoured seers. As a result he simply nodded stiffly, agreeing with his father whilst saying nothing. Father always came first. Always. That was the way of things in the world, and his father was the sort of man who would not make such comments without a very good reason. Kætil loved druids on the whole, some particular druids far more than others, but he would not take his father's words lightly.
Even so, he felt no harm in omitting Svaltha from that list. She was a druid because of him after all, so she owed him one. Besides, they were friends! They'd saved each other's life more than once now, not to mention Krai and Syren liked her. They were good judges of character, mostly. Well, actually Krai was a shit judge of character, but Syren was still a good judge. The weird man had been a little distant recently, but was starting to come around again. It was probably just because of that time with the moonflowers. It was funny though.
Realising that father was still staring at him and waiting for a response, he continued.
"I see. I'll do my best to keep that in mind when dealing with druids, father."
Dyfed nodded, and the two of them lapsed into silence once more. It wasn't a comfortable silence, for his father was clearly trying to work out how to ask something, but after a little while the large man finally managed to ask what Kætil suspected was the only important question in his father's opinion so far.
"Does she make you happy, my son?"
Kætil nodded, and his father mirrored the action.
"Your friends as well? Are you happy around them as well?"
"In a different way, but yes, certainly."
Father nodding, the beginnings of a smile on his face, but he quickly smothered it with a hand. Kætil had still seen it however, and so he knew that his father was happy for him nonetheless. To try and move the conversation along a little Kætil tried bringing up some of the other pieces of information he'd been given by the druids recently.
"Have you heard from the druids? The giants are on the move, father. All of them."
Dyfed grinned at him.
"I do, my son, but I do not think you understand that when the druids say 'all of them' they do mean all of them."
Kætil's eyes widened.
"You mean- you mean the Greater Jotun? You mean Dragrr?"
Dyfed continued grinning, sending a single nod towards his son as a gesture of acknowledgement.
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"You seem rather calm with this revelation, father. Dragrr is huge, far larger than any other creature left in this miserable world."
His father merely grunted his acknowledgement at him, a cryptic message closing out their conversation.
"Giants do not seem nearly so tall when they are on their knees, Kætil. Think on that a little while."
He nodded, a little bewildered, before his father smiled at him one last time and gestured towards the entrance of the tent, signalling that he could leave.
"You are happy, and that's what matters. You may go now, my boy. Enjoy yourself a little longer; the war begins in earnest soon, and you'll be leading a great many of our skirmishing forces along the river. I know you will do me proud, boy. I know it."
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He knew father had been right about the druids, deep down in some sensible part of himself that he'd done a pretty good job of ignoring these last few years, but that hadn't stopped him from continuing his interactions with Svaltha, interactions that Krai had described as "Like watching a pair of randy stoats circle each other", which had earned him a clout about the ear.
The two of them, Kætil and Svaltha, were... close. They hadn't said anything about it but he knew what he felt, and he was almost certain she felt it to. Given that she'd promised him he'd be receiving his new runic inscriptions tonight he knew she must feel the same; druids weren't allowed to just carve runes when they felt like it, there was an order to such things. With the amount of runes she intended to carve he doubted that the elders would let her carve another for decades when the night was out. If she were willing to do that for him...
They could match each other in combat like no-one else he'd fought, she had a wit so sharp and acerbic he'd thought she meant to kill him with it at times, and above all she had a body like-
He closed his eyes and cleared his mind for what was to come. There was a time and a place for such lines of thought.
As for him? He had been stripped down to the waist before being tied by the ankles and wrists to a low altar that had doubtlessly been used for sacrifices before, not that he was at all worried about that prospect, and was now awaiting the return of his own personal druid and the blade she was to use on him. Not to sacrifice, but to sculpt.
He writhed experimentally a little where he lay, glad for the bonds that held him in place. Without them he was certain he'd kick his legs or flail like a child at what was to come. Krai and Syren were still busy dealing with some menial tasks so they wouldn't interrupt, not that such things would have mattered anyway; this was the private tent of a druid, and woe betide anyone who intruded on the privacy of a druid. In her hand was a small, thin blade of carved antler, and on her face was a look that combined infatuation with trepidation. Oh, they'd come far these last few weeks, but they weren't that far along, surely. Maybe she was just excited to be able to be able to use her admittedly limited rune carving abilities on him as a test subject.
See, most druids carved runes into talismans or monoliths. Others preferred to carve prayers into weapons and armour. They were relatively commonplace, and simple enough to not have any real risk of an adverse effect. The runes were tied to the materiel it was carved with and into, however, and so such calls to the gods were often weak and fickle. Kætil's talisman, the amber necklace he wore, was still good though. From what little he understood from listening to the druids at the time amber was one of the single best materials from which to carve runes. He wasn't sure why, but he wasn't going to pretend to start understanding runes now.
He knew that some sort of glassy rock that came from volcanoes was better, and that shards of the Greystones were better still, but such materials were almost completely inaccessible to them at the moment. The only thing that might be a rival for Greystone shards in terms of raw power was... well, life.
Kætil wasn't interested in mundanity like that, and neither was Svaltha. They didn't want fickle blessings, nor did they care for weakness.
Using a blade of carved antler that she had made herself, she was going to carve a litany of runes directly into his flesh. A blade made from the dead to carve runes into the flesh of the living. Death and life, the cycle of struggle. What pair of materials could possibly result in greater bindings?
The process promised to be excruciating, arguably more so than when he'd previously been wounded in battle, but the rewards? They promised to be even greater.
Even if he was looking forwards to the rewards however, he couldn't quite stop the nervous anticipation as he watched his friend make sure her antler-bone blade was sharp and clean one last time.
His eyes were stinging with sweat and his breaths came ragged through the cloth in his mouth that was preventing him from biting off his tongue, but even in this state he was able to follow her voice and listen as she explained the runes she had carved.
Three times her blade of bone cut horizontally through the skin of his chest, digging into the flesh beneath, each one a line of equal length running parallel to the others. A forth cut ran vertically to the right of the other three, but halfway down the blade snagged and stopped for a moment before Svaltha jostled it a little, allowing it to continue cutting through his chest. The lines weren't big, probably no more than four inches each, but by Krakevasil did the process hurt.
"That was a rune of protection, Kætil. You will continue to fight through wounds that would kill lesser men a dozen times over."
The knife caught again when she moved to carve the next rune, and while the motion shocked him a little he couldn't help but feel as though the cut was... less painful, almost. Not quite muted, not even remotely lessened in truth, but he didn't feel as panicked by it as he had the first time the blade had caught and snagged.
The rune she was carving, though he angle he was arched at made it difficult to see, felt as though it were a rough octagon, and though each stroke was the same size they were smaller than those that had made up the rune of protection. Through the middle of the octagon and carrying on through either side was a single vertical line, two more strokes being added from the right of that line on an upwards slant at the tip and middle forming a sort of slightly-off 'F' shape. Where the first rune had been but four lines, this one had been eleven. The pain hit him in waves, but he didn't care. His mind didn't scream at him to move away, his body was far stiller than it previously had been, and he almost felt at ease as the blade ran through him again and again.
Almost as soon as that rune had been carved Svaltha had started on the next, this one seeming to take far more concentration. He reckoned that had something to do with the fact that the other two had been made up entirely of straight lines, whereas this one felt like it was incorporating a great many curves. It felt like a line spiralling inwards, but broken through the middle by another vertical line. The vertical line had been carved first, he must have somehow managed to miss that despite the fact it was literally being carved into his skin. He wasn't sure how deep it was being carved, but he'd have felt comfortable placing a bet that the knife was being driven more than an inch under the surface.
The 'spiral' that was broken by the vertical line didn't come within an inch of the dividing line on either side, and as a result the spiral was not one continuous cut but in fact a series of around a dozen. He wasn't sure what these runes were for, but he trusted Svaltha. She's a druid, so she knows what she'd doing. She knows me, and so she knows what I need. She'll make the right decisions and make the right marks, of that I have no doubt.
"I've added the runes for 'endurance' and 'magics' next to the rune of protection, chieftain. Neither blade nor eldritch might shall see you laid low now, not for so long as this rune remains. And it will remain, Kætil. It is a part of your flesh now. None save death may see such markings removed."
Despite the searing pain he couldn't help but grin maniacally through his gag. He was drawing closer to his god, and though he had known such a thing would happen he hadn't realised just how true it actually was. Here he was, tied up and bleeding, and yet he didn't care anymore for the pain. The pain was nothing to him, not now. It might even have felt good in truth, as though he knew deep down that this was always meant to happen like this. Krakevasil cared not from where the blood flowed, after all. He only cared that it continued to flow.
As that last realisation flooded through him he felt the last of his worry melt away into nothing. He was still in pain, of course he was, but no longer were his breaths panicked or muscles twitching with the need to move him out of harms way. He was still in pain, but it didn't matter any more. Pain didn't matter when you realised it wasn't supposed to matter.
Krakevasil didn't care who's blood was running, and so why should Kætil care whether the blood that coated his chest came from him or not? Blood was blood, and Krakevasil was thirsty. His god would drink from his veins just as soon as those he had slaughtered.
He couldn't stop his fingers and feet from twitching intermittently as more and more lines were added across his chest, the minutes rolling into hours as day turned into night, but with every single stroke he knew that he was coming closer to the Lord of All Murder, the Suzerain of the Battlefield. He was coming closer to Krakevasil, and though his blood was still running fast he had never been more certain that he was doing the right thing.
When at last Svaltha put down the knife and breathed a sigh that managed to mix extasy and relief he felt the gag removed from his mouth.
"Well," he said, "I take it we're done here then?"
"Yeah," she replied, almost breathless, "we're done with the runes. Here, take a look for yourself."
She held up a plate of polished bronze at such an angle that he was able to properly make out the series of ritual carvings that now littered his front. The cuts had been deeper than he thought, deep enough that there would likely be a series of scars when they healed. It made sense, he supposed, for if they healed to nothing the runes wouldn't be there anymore.
His entire chest looked like a tapestry or record of some sort, and there were so many runes of varying sizes that he wasn't sure where to even begin. There were dozens, scores, maybe even as many as a hundred small runes painting his chest, and though he recognised a few of them and some of them were repeated a few times, the majority he had to admit he wasn't that sure on. The druidic order held the language of the runes close to their chest, after all, and there was only so much of what Svaltha had said that he'd been able to take in.
"Doesn't look too bad. A bit sloppy, but that was to be expected."
She scoffed at his dry tone, politely ignoring his minor stutter as he sucked in breath after rattling breath.
"I did a damn good job and you know it. Let me start cleaning you up before anything else."
He nodded absentmindedly, still looking at the plate of bronze even as it was moved away from him as Svaltha pulled over a pail of water and soap with a rag.
The first rune had been one of the largest, but there must have been seven smaller copies of it strewn across his chest. Some were slightly different, though if they meant something else or if they had just been carved a little off he wasn't sure. Svaltha was new to this, after all. Any which way you looked at it though, it certainly seemed like Svaltha had really tried to use the entire canvas she had been given to work with.
When the worst of the blood was washed away he found the bonds around his wrists and ankles were loosened somewhat, though still not removed entirely. His friend moved a drink of some sort to his lips, a hot and steaming liquid that tasted vaguely of moss, and he drank it greedily.
"You'll need to eat quite a lot of meat in the coming days. It'll get your blood back up and stop you being woozy or drowsy."
Kætil nodded as best he could, but stopped when he found his head lolling about a little. Her words made sense to him; he'd been advised to do similar things before now when he'd lost a little too much blood when fighting.
"Well, get this rope off of me and we'll see about getting me some rest then, shall we?"
She smirked down at him, hunger in her eyes.
"I don't think so. I said we were done with the runes, chieftain. We've still got a long night ahead of us both. Try not to fall asleep, won't you? I don't want to rest quite yet."
Her voice dropped a little at her closing words, and despite the fact he was still tied up and bleeding he smiled. Tonight might not be over for a long time, but as he grinned back at her with that same hunger in his eyes he found that he was more than happy to oblige his druid.