Year of Darkness - Part 1 - 536 by Nick Stead

 

The world was ending. Sol could still be seen moving across the sky in her great chariot, but her warmth and light could no longer be felt down on Midgard. Her brightness had become a distant memory, her beautiful orange glow replaced by a sinister bluish tinge. And so began the endless winter. Or rather, winter simply failed to end, refusing to release its icy clutches on the land while this strange dark cloud shielded it from the power of the summer sun.

Bjorn had long since abandoned farming. As the days turned colder and the weeks passed with no hint of the gloom retreating, more and more crops began to fail. Now he relied solely on the hunt to survive. But even meat had become scarce, deer and boar feeling the grip of famine as surely as its people had. Successful hunts were growing fewer and farther between, and hunger was with him more often than not.

Still, perhaps that day he might escape famine’s jaws. The deer’s tracks he’d found were still fresh and he’d seen no evidence to suggest a rival hunter had claimed the animal for their own, man or otherwise. With luck, the kill would be his.

The tracks took him through a village. At first he thought it to be another abandoned settlement, another tribe forced into becoming wanderers by the dark cloud overhead. But as he stalked across the frost touched ground, he soon saw the truth. For this one had not been abandoned after all. The tribe remained, their bodies wasting in the place they’d called home.

Bjorn could feel their eyes on him. One in particular gave him pause, the boy’s mouth open as if in warning.

“Go back,” the corpse appeared to be saying. Except it no longer had a throat and lungs to say the words with.

Something had fed on these people. Something big and greedy, choosing not to eat its fill of any one of the villagers, but instead taking pieces from each, leaving barely an inch of flesh untouched. Something monstrous.

Bjorn was no fool. He knew the murk had brought worse than famine. Some new kind of beast had awoken, and now it had begun to claim Midgard for its own.

His hunger drove him onwards. Among the dead was one of the strange priestesses of this new Christ god. Her body had been ravaged like all the rest, yet somehow the wooden cross about her neck remained untouched. The Christians might have found significance in that. Bjorn merely noted how Christ had failed to save her. From what he’d heard tell of Christianity, theirs was a god of peace and mercy, not war and wrath. To Bjorn that was the same as weakness. There was little wonder the holy woman had fallen with the rest of them.

He was not old enough to remember the time of the great Roman Empire, but there had been plenty of tales among the elders in the tribe he had once belonged to. He knew a little of the original Roman gods, both strange and familiar, some perhaps even the same as his own, worshipped under different names. But where were their gods of war now? Where was Thor with his mighty hammer to beat back the darkness and all its dangers?

Something dark appeared at the corner of his eye. It wasn’t a shadow. There were none in this weak, half-light. It slid from the edge of his vision and his heart beat a little faster, his blood turning colder.

“Go back,” the dead seemed to whisper a second time. But running was not an option. The pit of hunger in Bjorn’s stomach was gaping wider by the hour. He’d come too far to turn back empty handed. He had to see this hunt to the end.

Sol began her descent and the world grew darker still. Bjorn was closing in on his quarry, the deer just visible on the edge of the woods. He nocked an arrow and raised his bow, but before he could fire, another arrow buried itself in the deer’s flank. The animal bolted.

A one-eyed man burst into view, a rival hunter about to beat him to the kill. Bjorn cursed and joined in the chase, but the dread beast snatched their quarry from them, the deer’s life ending in a terrible bleating scream, and a howl of triumph from its killer.

That chilling sound brought Bjorn to a standstill, yet his rival would not be deterred so easily. One Eye never slowed, showing no fear as he charged into battle with their monstrous foe. Bjorn found fresh courage in the face of such heroism and ran after them.

He slowed and took aim, watching with wide eyes as One Eye cast aside his bow in favour of his sword and swung at the beast. But the creature dodged the blow with ease and retaliated with a snap of his mighty jaws.

What was that thing? There was barely any light left to see by. He thought its head might have been wolfish, yet it moved like no wolf he had ever seen. Several times it reared up on its hind legs and swung its paws, more like a bear, but when it dropped to all fours, its gait wasn’t quite like a bear’s either, and its tail was far too long and bushy. He began to realise there was something disturbingly human about its limbs and body… But how could that be?

And who was this man? Bjorn had known many mighty warriors in his time on the earth, but this hero was somehow greater than them all in his fight with this monstrous wolf thing.

Bjorn loosed his second arrow. It flew through the air and whistled harmlessly past the monster’s head, burying itself in a trunk. He never had chance to fire a third. The beast wrapped its jaws around One Eye’s throat and it was all over. And yet One Eye refused to die without taking the monster with him, thrusting his sword deep into the creature’s chest. There was another terrible howl, then they fell in a tangle of monstrous limbs and bloodied skin, forever locked in their struggle.

For a brief moment, Bjorn fancied he could see the man’s bearded face, a piercing blue eye fixing him with its empty gaze. But the image was seen only with his mind, hero and monster no more than a dark heap on the ground. And he knew then the rival hunter was not a man at all but a god.

Understanding dawned. This was how the world ended, with the death of the gods and the rise of monstrous wolves destined to devour all. The end was upon them, but it had not quite come yet. Not for Bjorn at least, not as long as he still drew breath. And for as long as he kept his hold on life, he had to eat.

He dared to creep forward again, towards the deer carcass. A growl came from behind and he froze. His gaze was drawn back to the god and his foe, but the heap was noticeably smaller, the wolf thing’s corpse vanished.

With fresh dread, Bjorn turned to face the beast. Except the silhouette was not the monster but another man, his sword held high. Then the sword came down in a vicious arc meant for Bjorn’s head.