Norse Zombie Vengeance

 

 

 

 Bjarni Olafson kissed the blade of his bearded battle axe and stood with his back to the burning building, wind and snow lashed his face as the blizzard grew in strength. He watched the expression on the man’s face in front of him as it changed from shock to horror then petrifying fear. Dark smoke from the flaming thatch filled the air with thick choking fumes.

 The other man’s eyes darted about the scene, taking in the three youths lying face down in the thick carpet of snow. Two boys and one girl, their throats slit, then to the woman, lying with her skirts hitched up over her hips, exposing white legs and fleshy buttocks. His eyes widened when he saw the tiny form of a babe lying at the foot of a tree, a bloody trail of pulp and bone leading from the trunk.

 “You died. I killed you myself, I saw your body.”

 Olafson grinned and lifted his chin exposing the bloody wound across his neck. It had been a mortal blow.

 “What are you?” the man asked as he fumbled for the hammer amulet around his neck, seeking the protection of the God of Thunder.  

 Although his bowels were turning to water he hauled his sword from its leather sheath and charged. Like a great shaggy bear with red hair flying he launched himself at Bjarni. His fear was running high blinding him to caution. Bjarni, swept up his axe in a wide arc, and with a spray of blood and hair flying the other man’s head flew through the air. Bjarni stepped over the decapitated husk.

 Ten years previously Lars Henrikson had led a band of hard men into Bjarni’s village. Under cover of darkness they crept into the settlement and locked the doors of the feasting hall before setting it alight. Anybody who attempted to escape were shot at with arrows, slings or hacked with great Dane axes. Everybody inside had died including Bjarni. He had attempted to charge outside, to rush the attackers and break the siege, he was cut down and killed.

 It had taken him years to hunt them down. Now the ghosts of the dead could rest in peace. All but Bjarni, he had made an evil pact with Hel, daughter of Loki in his lust for revenge. He was doomed to wander the frozen wastes, for all time, seeking out the descendants of Lars Henrikson so that they might serve his family as slaves in the pits of Helheim.