Tale of Tyrasmund: Excerpt #2

A warm sensation spread through his fingers into his hands and up his arm. No more alarms or warning bells rang through his mind. Once he touched the breathing air all his previous concerns slipped away and he was compelled to keep walking into the anomaly.

As Tyr walked into the distorted air everything around him became distorted as well. He could no longer hear the clear and piercing screeches of the desert owls. There was no vibrant blinding sun in the sky. No scorpions skittering about. No gritty sand slipping into his shoes. At first there was just a wobbly mixture of colors and textures surrounding him. He could see every color of the rainbow projected on the walls of the strange portal he strode through.

He kept walking and as he went he could hear a host of new sounds. One sound suddenly rang out louder than the others - it was the sound of clashing metal on metal. At first the sounds had been faint but with each step they grew louder and more horrifying.      

He could make out the faint noises of terror but soon they grew to piercing heart wrenching screams. A pattern emerged. He could hear the cry of bloodlust, followed by metallic smashing, following by shrieks, ending in thick wet noises and a thud.

Tyr had never heard sounds like these before but instinctively he was afraid. He couldn’t tell where they came from. The sickening cacophony of sounds came from everywhere and no where, it seemed to permeate the space. He spun around searching for the source but he couldn’t find any. With no other options he continued moving forward, or at least what he thought was forward. In the wobbling and rotating room anything could be up or down. He could only count on his luck.

The soundscape grew. Everything was increasing. He could hear the sounds of war as if they were right in his own ear. As the orchestra of pain grew louder Tyr could smell a foul stench. At first it was mild but soon it became overpowering. He knew this smell all too well and his mind involuntarily went to memories of that small shack baking in the summer heat. He remembered his grizzly hands and the smell of sun soaked blood and misery. He would recognize that scent anywhere.

Like the clouds clearing away his haze was lifted. Life was suddenly in technicolor, the scents, sounds, sights and dangers exploded into reality around him. The animal within him beat the drums of war loudly in his ear and pumped his muscles full of strength. Fatigue and weariness disappeared in an instant and Tyr was alert and ready.

He had walked right into the middle of an active battlefield. The cries of war surrounded him and the air was thick with the unfortunate smell of death. There wasn’t time to process what had happened or how he had ended up in the middle of a war after walking through some funny looking portal that showed up in a desert. The story was growing more and more absurd but he hadn’t the time to unweave the tangled mess.

His ears rang as a sword collided with a shield mere inches from his head. He jerked backwards in shock, but the grass was soaked and his foot slipped out from under him. All of the air escaped his lungs when his back collided with the hard ground. Breathless, he began to slip down the incline. Hundreds of pairs of feet moved frantically in a visceral dance around him as he skidded down the hill picking up speed. Some of the warriors tripped over his moving body, while others continued their fight, stepping on top of his already broken body. By the time he stopped at the bottom of the steep incline he was covered in bruises and red colored shoe prints.

Tyr managed to roll over in the middle of the onslaught and crawl towards an opening in the fight. He tried not to think about what was happening around him as he heard the soft thud of bodies falling for their last time. His hands were soaked but he wouldn’t look down. He didn’t want to see, he already knew.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.   

A leather-clad knee smacked him in the face. A booted foot kicked him in the side. A fallen shield fell and cracked upon his back. But he continued to repeat to himself….

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

“Nooo! Eeee-uuuhhh” with a wet thud a man fell to the ground right before Tyr. His eyes were wide open but empty and Tyr knew he was dead.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

He crawled over the man and kept crawling.

Only a few more feet. Only a few more.

A sword fell from tightly clenched hands to the ground and sliced open his arm. He could feel the warmth of his own blood trickle down his arm and around his bicep, tickling the soft skin in the crook of his elbow as it dripped. But he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. He crawled forward with one arm until the opening was in sight and he dove out of the pack.

The sounds of battle were still upon him as he backed away from the fray slowly ascending the hill. Outlying warriors fought one-on-one until there was only one. Only a few feet away he saw two warriors clashing. To him they didn’t look all that different. In different clothing they could have been siblings. But in this moment they were sworn enemies, each trying to rob the other of their life.

The one warrior had a large shield in one hand and a short hatchet with a wide head in the other. Her opponent held a long spear and a smaller round shield around the forearm. Each warrior attacked the other without hesitation or fear. Their eyes grew large until the whites reflected against the black and red of the battlefield. 

She raised her axe above her helmet clad braids and shouted. Spit flew from her mouth and as she felled her opponent blood spattered into the whites of her eyes. Yet she didn’t blink or wipe it away. She tilted her head backwards and raised a scream of victory to the heavens.

As Tyr watched the spear fall to the ground and the man’s lifeless body follow, he felt fear. He was far enough away from the rest of the battle that surely she would see him and come for him next. Tyr froze. He watched as she yelled in victory and spat upon the body of her enermy looking crazed and full of bloodlust.

He expected that any second she would come down from on high and seek out her next victim and there he’d be, standing out against the scenery like a cardinal amongst a flock of ravens. Every alarm in his mind was blaring telling him to run, or hide, or play dead, or anything. But he couldn’t. All he could do was stare on in horror at the mighty figure before him.

He stared at her, drinking in every detail of the image. Blood spatters covered her exposed arms and legs. Amongst the abstract blotches of red he could see the unmistakable lines of thick muscle.  Tyr knew he wouldn’t stand a chance in his current state against her but no matter how hard his animal instincts tried to take over, he was mortified into stillness.

She finished her powerful war cry and returned her attentions to the battlefield. 

This is it. He thought. His mind prepared him for death and he embraced his end. She ran at him and he winced, waiting for the final strike to come. But to his surprise it didn’t come. He opened his eyes and saw the warrior running down into the valley towards the bulk of the battle, completely blowing past him by merely a few inches.

Tyr stood in shock as he watched her run down the hill and leap into the heart of the battle, axe tightly in hand. Just like that she was gone and he stood on the hill alone. The rest of the outlying warriors had reconnected with the larger forces and the battle continued to shift and move like a living organism.

He couldn’t make any sense of it, there was no way that she couldn’t have seen him. She stared right through him and didn’t do a thing. He hadn’t gotten the impression that she was too fond of mercy, and he completely ruled out the possibility that she had chosen not to kill him. Tyr ran his mind in circles trying to work himself out of the paradox this created.

She couldn’t have seen me. He finally concluded.

That’s the only way. If she had she would’ve attacked, that much I can be sure of. Why she couldn’t see me is the question though….what kind of strange place is this? It made some sense when I entered my own memory, but isn’t any of this real?

As he pondered his good fortune in escaping death, he also considered the mysterious origin of his luck. He was drawn from his reverie by the putrid smells and horrific sounds of war. The wind had changed directions and was now blowing the full might of perfume de morte his way. Tyr kneeled down and began to wretch into the dirt.

How can they do this? Why are they fighting? For what purpore is this! What could possibly be worth this much death? Stop…Please…Stop…. He wanted to shout or cry but most of all he wanted to raise himself up tall and end the fighting with some divine intervention.

He looked down on the battlefield from the top of the ridge. Before him he saw a long stretching valley with a steep incline. The center of the battle was at the very lowest point of the valley. Small groups of warriors had separated from one another and littered the slope. Each side was fighting for the higher ground but somehow the battle remained at the bottom of the hill. He could see that the dead bodies were falling down the hill and pooling at the bottom to the point where the warriors waged war upon the corpses of their allies.

Tyrasmund couldn’t believe the violence and hatred. It hung over the scene darkening the sky and clouding the air. All was death and at the center of it all he saw a single man. This man wore scars like trophies and the ferocity of his spirit was unmatched. All else seemed to fade to grey when Tyr saw the man. He became the only thing that Tyr could feel. Tyr was overcome with the feeling of the man’s bloodlust. He had been surprised at the ferocity of all the warriors but in particular this man stood out as something stronger, darker, and more powerful. With sword in hand he seemed to float and dance across the battlefield like a fairy of death. No one could stand before him for more than a few seconds. Bodies dropped to the ground as he danced. His path through the valley was marked by a line of bodies.

Tyr couldn’t rip his eyes away from the man. There was something so entrancing about his movements. The way his muscles twitched and shook as he thrust his sword into the chests of his opponents, the way his long blood soaked hair flung droplets of viscera flying through the air. It was so intentional and so perfected that it was almost an art. Some people are born wrought for their destinies. This man was one of them. There was no doubt his destiny was violence and death.

The battle waged on and Tyr watched the man becoming ever more enthralled in his deadly dance. As the battle came to its crescendo he was ever rising. Tyr was no longer watching a person but rather some kind of beast or spectre of the battlefield. The power of the underworld coursed through this warrior like the rushing river Styx.

Some time passed as Tyr sat upon the hill and watched the battle unfold. He was so enchanted by the man that he didn’t even notice when the battle began to shift slowly up the hill. The pile of bodies at the bottom of the valley had grown too cumbersome for good battle and the mass of living bodies continued to climb the slope. The ground had been so soaked with blood that the grass was too slick in many places to climb. He watched as fighter after fighter was brought to their end the moment their foot should slip on the hill. Gaining the higher ground was turning out to be the only sure victory in this fight.

Within his own mind Tyr questioned himself and his rising obsession with the fight. Thoughts of escape or fleeing never even crossed his mind. He didn’t wonder about the jaguar or the desert, or the stag, or anything except what the man’s next move would be. He knew it was odd but he did nothing to break his strange compulsion. There was something that felt so deeply satisfying about watching a human unhinged from the normal rules of civilization. This was war and there was something so familiar about it all. Almost too familiar at points.

As he watched the man drop enemy after enemy something felt odd to him. It was as if Tyr could begin to predict the fight. He began to know what side the warrior would attack from or how he would block the enemy. He could almost predict when someone would slip and fall to their death or narrowly escape. He could nearly feel the sensation of plunging a sword into the surprisingly resistant bones of another.

The sensations of battle overcame him. A strong whiff of metallic blood came into his nose. He suddenly felt wet everywhere.

What’s happening?!

He shook his head, hoping to shake clear his thoughts, but in an instant they all disappeared. All he knew was to duck. As his body fell into a crouch a few of the hairs on his head fell to the ground. He looked up and saw a man standing inches from his crouched body. Another man stood to his left. Above his head a solid steel blade hung in the air.

He had ducked just in time as to not get his own head chopped off. The two men were locked in heated battle but apparently oblivious to Tyr’s existence. They continued their fight and rotated away from his crouching frame.

How did I know to duck? Don’t they see me?

But before he could sort it out the smell came back, but this time, far more overpowering. The stench was so strong that his vision blurred and all he could feel was a growing wetness on his hands and skin. He opened his eyes and looked down and saw that he was covered in blood. His body was moving - a lot. He was suddenly on his feet darting from left to right swinging his arms. There was a hefty weight now in his hands that hadn’t been there before.

He saw that he now held a sword that glistened with blood. His body whipped the sword about and he watched in horror as dismembered arms flew around. Black blood parted the seas before him and humans dropped to his feet.

There was no controlling his body. All he could do was watch the horrors unfold at his hand. The lifeless looks of men and women, the broken shards of shield impaled through men’s eyes. He saw the intestines of women bubble and spill out onto the ground while they watched, desperately grasping at their insides. Only to fall lifeless into a pile of their own organs. All of it unfolded before his eyes. But the worst part for Tyrasmund was how he felt.

Death and destruction overcame this place but all he could feel was excitement and a twisted rush from the pit of his stomach. Somewhere he loved it. He loved the violence and the gore. The pure unadulterated hatred for another. Ripping. Roaring. Clawing. Destroying. It felt so right, somehow so familiar.

After some time of waging war his body stopped and turned its head. He saw through foreign eyes the very spot on the hill he was sitting. There he was. On the hill but not. His mind struggled to comprehend how his body could be there and yet he had another body.

He remembered back to that night in the woods. He remembered the feeling of being out of his body so vividly, but this was different. Back then he had had no body at all, but now he was in another’s body. Inspiration struck him like lightning and he understood. He looked at his own sword and confirmed his suspicion. He had watched this sword slay hundreds and now by a twist of fate he was behind it.

Without notice his body rushed towards a new group of warriors locked in battle. A scream escaped from his lips and he could feel the welling of unimaginable power from within. It was a power he had never quite known but somehow had always been aware of. He felt alive. Somewhere within the depths of his heart beyond the bloodlust and the violence was a strong sense of justice and compassion for the thousands that lay in eternal stillness.

In spite of this compassion there was duty and in that duty there was a freedom of form. He was freer than he had ever felt. His powerful arms lifted the weighted sword high above his head but before he brought the blade down upon the unsuspecting enemy, a black blur flickered through his eyes.

He saw brain matter fly out of the skull of his enemy, followed by a limp and awkward collapse to his grave. Tyr wasn’t in control of this body so he could only see where this man was seeing and it was some time before he could look at anything besides death and gore.

When his head finally lifted from the onslaught he saw the source of the black blur. It was none other than the jaguar. He could see its mighty frame stalking the edges of the battlefield. At first he was sure that the beast must be waiting its turn at destruction or to have a feast upon the spoils of war. But as he looked at the creature profound feelings of nostalgia washed over him. The beast was somehow familiar and comforting. He wanted to rush to its side.

He was suddenly moving towards the jaguar but now it seemed so far away. He felt his legs moving under him; he was running at full speed. He ran passed it all. Passed the cries of death, passed the clanking of metal, passed the lifeless bodies rolling towards their unassuming grave, he ran passed it all faster than he had ever run before. He could see the jaguar’s sweeping tail and its nonstop pacing.

What is it doing? Everything was so strange. When he fell from the top of the falls he hadn’t just plunged into the corrosive wading pool, he had plunged balls deep into an absurdist nightmare. He was constantly gripped with questions he would never get the answer to, but if he stopped now he would never raise his head above the water and cease drowning. He knew all he could do was move forward. Afterall, that’s what he’d been doing his whole life. Head down feet forward, he knew the mantra by heart.

The hill was slick with blood and as he tried to ascend its steep incline his feet slipped and slid out from under him. Each time he slid ten or so feet down the slope before he could stop his momentum. Then he would lift himself up and begin to run again. Slowly, he gained ground. But the jaguar always seemed just out of reach no matter how far he climbed.

Blood splattered across his face as he fell to the ground with a wet thud. Little droplets hung from the ends of his eyelashes obscuring his vision with red. In between the lines of blurred sight he could see in the distance the powerful black body pacing, the long tail flicking back and forth.

When he could finally see the green eyes of the beast he reached out trying to grab hold. Maybe it was because the jaguar was the only familiar face he knew but for whatever reason he felt compelled to it. He told himself if he could only reach it then he would be safe. But as he reached out to grasp at the creature it turned and disappeared in an instant. His hand grasped nothing but thin air.

A powerful wave of disappointment and despair washed over him. His emotions were raw, stripped to their most primal level. Life or death. This wasn’t a joke for him. I fun little hallucination, a bad day dream, no. In his core he knew this was a matter of living or dying. The sight of the jaguar had at least made him think there was some chance of rescue. Maybe it would turn benevolent like the other creatures he’d met so far? Or at least so he hoped.

His arms dropped to his side. His chest sank and rose rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. The sounds of battle rang in his ear and all he wanted was to disappear too. It was then that he remembered how he’d gotten to this place. The mortal terror had forced all other concerns out of his mind entirely. Now that he stopped to think he remembered the strange portal behind the air that moved like water.

He inspected the air around where the jaguar had disappeared and sure enough he saw soft ripples emanating from the spot. Without another thought he walked into the water, following after the elusive jaguar.