Outracing the Flames RPG

[Nogrod]

“The death of the Easterling does not give me concern, Master Sythric. He was no man that I should upset myself with his death. He was worse than a beast...” Brand’s words echoed in Sythric’s mind. He was not totally aware of everything Brand had said, but catched a piece from here and there. And disagreed with him. “I know most likely he thought the same as I . . . that is, that had he succeeded in killing me there would be no remorse on his part . . .” Why do you want to make yourself to resemble that twisted image you have made of your enemies?We are people and they are people. But if you want to find a difference, how about we being the ones who know remorse, who can feel and understand? And at least some of them can too... I know it. But then he was hit with an unbearably hard pain. Before he passed away, he felt Brand’s strong arms trying to grasp him. Their going had halted. Meghan was there, and Leod too.

There was the face of the young easterling, not much older than Dorran. He had just thrusted his spear through Bletric who had attacked him. And there, in the middle of the frantic battle, Sythric caught his eyes, filled with terror and anguish, just bewildered about what had happened, realizing what he had done. Sythric had killed the youngster just the following moment, almost actually riding over him. The lad’s terror of killing someone the first time had immediately changed to the shock of realizing his own death. So fragile is the life of man...

And there were lots of images, lots of voices in his head. They were about death. There were his companions dying, there were people he had killed: bandits and easterlings as well. There was his grand-uncle and grandfather. But then there was his little sister, Winlan, who died at the age of five. He was then only 9 and his big brother Swithulf was 11. Her screams of pain filled Sythric’s head and he was suddenly back to the night she died.

She had had rising temperatures for some days. She didn’t eat, and all the more frequently she had cried for her pains. The healer had been there and done what she could. On the last evening, she had started to have attacks that bursted her to infernal screaming. And they got worse towards the night. That was the most haunting voice Sythric had ever heard. His dear sister, just a child as he was himself, crying and yelling in anguish and pain. Why she had to be in that kind of pain? What was it? There was such a terror in her voice – and her gaze between the attacks – that even now, just remembering it, Sythric started to shudder physically in his makeshift sledge. Her eyes had been praying for help, and he had just felt so insignificant there, so insufficient, not knowing how to help the little sister who begged them all to end that pain.

The healer had finally arrived at the dead of the night. Sythric remembered, that they had been ordered out from the room Winlan was lying in. Only their mother had been allowed to stay. His father walked around the floor quietly and silently, looking downwards. Sythric and Swithulf sat at the bench by the wall, holding each others hands and sobbing quietly, not daring to look anywhere but their own feet. Winlan was howling in torturous pain and anguish. Suddenly it became silent for a second. Then they heard their mother starting to howl with a different, but as shrilling a voice. From the corner of the hall, their grandmother started to cry too. Their father stopped his slow walking. As he in the end turned his look towards the brothers, the tears were slowly gathering in the corner of his eye and his chin had just started to tremble. He was clearly intending to addres the two big brothers, but they didn’t stay to hear it. Sythric and Swithulf ran out of the house into the darkness of the latesummer night.

They had run wildly down the hill in the stillness of the night, outside the house of the horror, and reached the small stream running beside the fields. From some unspoken agreement, they had both jumped into the water and just dived. The softness of the water surrounded them tenderly, and as they ceased moving, the soothing quietness of the water was all around them. Every once in a while they had to surface to breathe more air to their lungs, but then they went down again into that mellow nothingness of the underwater reality. Sythric nine years old, Swithulf two years older. Two little boys in grief, finding comfort from the cooling waters. Eventually they heard their father calling for them and came out from the water. But they were not going back to that house any more. After sitting by the stream for a while, they heard their father coming down the hill. He had some light provisions for the all of them and something to make a fire with. They didn’t utter a word that night, anyone of the three. But they built a fire, ate a little, and then slept under the starry sky: father and his two sons, all broken down with grief and anguish. It was only after Winlan had been buried, that the two boys came to sleep inside the house again.

A bit larger bump brought Sythric back to reality. Now also his back was hurting, not the least because of that last one. That had to be a rock or something. Good earth this pain!, but this last was in reference to his side. He tried carefully to feel about his side. Clearly he had some ribs broken, but he had also started to bleed again. He was about to call for Leod, but then thought otherwise. I’m slowing them down enough already. We’ll see it tonight as we make camp. I’ll make it to that – I know I will. Carefully Sythric tried to tighten the bandages around him, but had no mentionable success in it, as he could only use his right arm, and was speeding on in a makeshift sledge over some harsh ground.