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Before the Beginning---Part 2
Just Before Dawn

*Nightwolf, the Slayer*

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He *is* here.

Finally, I can feel him.  I can almost taste him, so powerful were the images that insignificant-looking boy called forth with his rolling words and amused description.

I don’t doubt anymore, that Keith is who he met in the Southern lands.

*“He made me laugh so hard my sides still ache!  And he used the damndest words; called me ‘dood’, which sounds almost insulting but he swore it meant ‘wise, good-looking, smart person’ in his speech.  Quite a bit for such a short word to cover! I think he was fooling me with that one, especially when he called the King the same word in a different tone---I know damn well it’s meaning switched then! That word applied to Golard was no compliment---”

“I hope I can remember some of those songs he played.  Did you ever hear this one? ‘Smoke on the water/fire in the sky---’  And there was another that brought tears to my eyes, mmm, let me find the tune here---”

‘We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun
Where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying
Valhalla, I am coming!’

“There, it gives me shivers, a song of the North unknown to me, and written by a stranger to our Land! He’s a spellsinger of course, I can’t make the words behave as he did, but still they’re filled with power. Oh, I see you know the tune, my Lord!  I can’t wait till he gets here so I can learn more of them!  He told me he’d penned hundreds that no one of this land has ever heard!”*

I have to smile at how Keith McIntyre, retired rocker, still gauges his audience so well.  It is also very like him, casually taking credit for probably every rock and roll song ever written.  Though I suppose an explanation based in truth might be complicated.  That would be his argument, anyway!

I *did* laugh, just a little, when the small singer told me of it, and the witchwoman appeared as if she would drop dead from surprise.  I suppose, she has never heard that sound come out of me before.  It surprised me also, that I remembered how.  But before this, what reason had there been for laughter?

I still cannot see his face.  The light gestures, the so-expressive lift of eyebrow, the tilt of his head as he smiles half-mocking---these I remember.  But putting them all together into a face I know is getting harder for me.

I was so afraid I would forget him entirely.  And if I forget, I will cease to exist.  There will be nothing left of me, without his memory to hold my soul in this body.  *It* will win.

I shiver, at how very close it came to winning already.

The witchwoman, and the failure of her promises---still it angers me, though good news came by a different path.  I know she has power, but her assurances were wound around with the welfare of her tribe, and too much pride in her own paths of seeing.  And I have come to believe her offer to find him was made only because she could think of no other way to tame the wild animal she must deal with.  Little enough she would care for my need if I would bend knee to her Gods without demanding something back!

I remember her look of disbelief and mild scorn, when I handed her the only thing I had left of him for her Seeking spell---a small circle of amber inscribed with a peace sign.  A joke present from Fisherman’s Wharf; even he hadn’t known I wore it always. I had to get a new scrap of leather to hang it around my neck; once the Change took me the original metal chain burst like a rotten string.  If I hadn’t found the bit of fallen amber in the mud fairly quickly, I truly think I might have killed them all.

And for her disdainful attitude towards what was precious to me, Sa’thal would have been the first to die.

Rage is very close to my surface now.  Whether from the savagery of this world, or his absence to check the darkness in me, I know not.  And only now, do I regret those I have hurt here.  Not the ones killed in battle, they are a nameless, faceless tide of blood to me as it should be.  I am called Slayer of the Northern Gods, and to reap our enemies is my function, as they see it.

And though my opinion of what is important beyond price has nothing to do with that function, the Tribal dead I do regret.

My feet have brought me to the Hill of Punishment, and as I look up the impaled bodies are stark black against the moonlight.  Rigid, slender trees hung with ripe and ghastly fruit.  For the first time, I wonder what their names were.  Do’nar would know.  He fought me, over all of them.  Each time, he almost joined them, but something I couldn’t understand stopped me short from murdering him though not from causing him injury.  I am sorry for that, too.

“What have I become?” I hear myself whisper into the low, eerie wind that seems to hug the place.  “Keith.  I’m sorry.  You’ll be so angry with me, for this.”

Something stirred, in the graveyard stillness around me.  I heard a small rattle, as of pebbles shifting.

I tensed a little. Fear is something different for me now; it doesn’t freeze me helpless, it sends me into action against its source, raging mindlessly.  But corpses and vengeful spirits are not things of terror to me; I waited calmly, and when a slightly hoarse voice spoke from the gloom I knew it instantly.

“Ha.  Well, this is unexpected, My Lord King.”  Do’nar’s use of the title always was just on the verge of insult, but I didn’t blame him for that, especially at the moment.

He trudged heavily into the dappled moonlight that fitfully revealed the field of silent warriors, the enemies I’d staked as trophies mixed with the few Tribesmen who had chosen the wrong moment to anger me.  He stopped a few feet away so he didn’t need to look up, and studied my face with a hawk’s golden eyes, belligerent yet curious.

“Unexpected indeed, by Odin’s beard! I never see you here except when you’re lugging a new idiot who opened his mouth at the wrong time.  And unless you mounted him mighty fast I don’t think that’s the case tonight.  This is a bad place to come out for a breath of fresh air, my lord.”

“Yes, it is bad,” I said bluntly, ignoring the thick sarcasm in his words.  “I’m glad to meet you here, though, it saves me looking for you.”

Truthfully, I hadn’t thought of my War Captain till now, but I realized he was just the person I needed.  The witchwoman too could have helped me, but I was tired of talking to her to be honest.  She had offered me only promises and excuses for far too long; it took a stranger to give me a solid fact, and that by accident!  And still she dared to feel outraged that I was unsatisfied with her meager efforts.  No, it was best for her if I spoke with Do’nar at present.

“What?” He peered at me, surprised and rattled a bit from his heavy-handed display of respectful disapproval into something like his real self.  “By Thor, you’re as sociable as a mad rat; why would you want my company---dammit, I suppose I should say ‘How can I serve you, my lord?’ but I’m just not in the mood right now!”

He dusted at his grimy leathers and winced as he slapped an open wound.  “The raid turned out well, but they were tough bastards and I’m too tired and beat up for diplomacy.  But I guess since I don’t have a sharpened stick through my guts already that you’re in a good mood.  So tell me what you want from me, I need a long soak.  I just stopped here to honor the dead.”

I had to smile at his blunt bravery; he was nervous enough inside, but he was damned if he’d be mealy-mouthed even if his honesty earned him a seat on a stake!  That thought bled through; I have an ability to read people from struggling with wizardry for a time, though it is nothing like Keith’s quick empathy.

But the War Captain was easy enough to understand.  His thoughts probably were plainly written on his face too, somewhere past the beard.  I must admit it, he was a decent enough man, neither stupid nor irresponsible though he fostered both these illusions about himself.  But like Keith, he was too basically honest to have much talent in duplicity.  When he saw me smile at this thought, he leaned back on his heels and stared as if the moon had fallen at his feet and begun dancing.

“To honor the dead is what I wish as well,” I said slowly, thinking it through.  “Those of our---of your Tribe, at least.  You know these things, the rituals needed.  I would like them to be---taken down, and given such rites as if---as if they had fallen in battle, defending their people.  It is true, in a way.”  Damn, but putting what I meant in words was difficult; my brain had rusted over somewhat, from refusing to communicate I supposed Keith would say.

How hard would it be, talking to him after all this time?

And did I even wish to say a word, at first?

No words.  Not if he still felt the same.  Words could come after touching him.

It was fortunate, that Do’nar spoke then.  The Hill of Punishment would be a poor place to get aroused.  And my War Captain would definitely misunderstand the reasons, and think me even more twisted than most believed me by now.

“My Lord!”  His words were startled, and seemed for once devoid of mockery.  Then he caught hold of his astonishment, and nodded, frowning at me thoughtfully.  “That would be a good thing.  The families mislike their dead in this condition, it’s dishonorable to be piked out the same as enemies and dined on by flies.  I’m surprised the place isn’t stiff with ghosts to be honest.”

“They are doubtless too afraid of me to complain,” I said it seriously, and was surprised at his bark of laughter.  And then the humor of it trickled through to me.  It was painful to laugh, almost as bad as putting my thoughts into sentences and speaking them aloud.

And yet---strangely freeing.

I could tell he was bursting to ask what prompted my change of heart, and he didn’t waste much time about it.  “Rites to finally honor the slain ones will soften much resentment, true.  Is that why you’re doing this?  No,” he answered himself, before I could decide whether to get angry or admire his courage.  “Why should our feelings matter to you at this point?”  He studied me keenly, and then said an odd thing.

“Every man suffers differently.  Though by Thor, your way is one of the worst I’ve seen yet!  But I’m pleased, if something has happened to make your presence in our world less hateful to you.”

By the gods, he was no fool whatsoever.  And I will need someone of the Tribe as a friend now, to help me prepare for Keith’s arrival. I can tolerate this man, I think. I know at least, he’ll speak the truth rather than what he assumes I wish to hear!

I felt a deep thankfulness, that I had not added Do’nar’s nameless carcass to the few dozen hanging here.

It truly would have been a waste.