Níðingr 

A gentle hand upon my shoulder nudged me awake. I had forgotten where I was, recollecting my sorrow after seeing my trusted horse below me, lifeless and still. Cold sweat slicked my back as I frantically searched the shadows for whoever had pulled me from sleep, but I found no one. My limbs shook unsteadily as I climbed to my feet, mind reeling with confusion and fear. 

I was nudged again—a startling, gentle touch upon my arm—and spun defensively. A precious child with long blond hair and blue eyes stood before me, beaming with a contagious smile that melted my heart like the first morning rays banishing the darkness of night. I could not put it into words, but a deep, unshakable love for the child stirred within me as if she were my own—mine to protect. My heart knew her, even though I did not. 

“They need you,” she whispered. “I will show you the way.” 

The child took me by the hand, her grip steadying in mine, and led me through the twisted marsh. We traveled in silence for some time, wading through murky waters and trampling sodden ground, the unnatural trees watching us with shrieking stillness. Shadows seemed to move, darting just beyond our peripheral, flitting into nothingness when my sight settled upon them. The girl showed no sign of fear, her demeanor solemn and determined as she guided me. I asked her name and how she came to be in this light-forsaken place, but she said nothing more to me beyond reassurance that we were nearly there. 

“They are coming,” the little girl whispered, stopping abruptly, her hands trembling. “Please don’t let them take me.” 

“Who is coming?” I asked, my thoughts suddenly muddled and foggy, making it difficult to gain my bearings as black fog surrounded me. 

The girl screamed—a shrill shrieking sound that made my ears ring and caused the hair along my neck to stand on end as she threw herself into the wet marsh. Her lank hair covered her face as she clutched her knees, hunched and rocking back and forth. I stooped to comfort her, placing my hand upon her tiny frame. It was cold. Lifelessly cold. 

“Little one…” Before my eyes, the girl changed, the golden locks of hair around her shoulders writhing and shriveling into stiff, brittle strands of decrepit gray, and her skin sagged and withered until her cheeks became hollow and pallid. 

The Jotunbjørn huffed within—distressed and afraid, its monstrous presence shrinking, the normally unyielding force of it faltering, its movements betraying a terror I had never felt before. I tried to speak, but death entangled itself in my throat, stealing the sound from my lips. 

She lifted her head slowly—painfully—until she met my gaze with unnaturally large, piceous eyes, an unsettlingly wide smile with rot-stenched teeth stretched across her face as if she were forcing a grin beyond her control. 

I tried to back away, but her hand shot out, gripping my wrist with inhuman strength, and holding me in place. Panic seized me, and I balled my hand into a fist, striking the demon’s face with all my might, hurling her across the bog. She slammed into a tree with a sharp crack and crumpled to the ground.

“Why would you do that?” the child whimpered, her beautiful blond hair once again billowing around her. She held her face in her hands, sobbing as blood dripped between her fingers. Pangs of guilt struck my gut like cold spears as I realized what I had done. 

“I’m sorry!” I lamented, running to her side, shocked she was still alive. “The forest is playing tricks on my mind. Are you alright? Can you walk?” I reached for her, heart torn at the pain I had caused. 

The hag’s glare snapped to mine, and the old woman sprang upon me, moving faster than any flesh-bound creature, her evil smile beckoning the end of life. She lashed out with hooked claws sinking them into my neck and spilling my blood into the mucky sump. 

I drew my sword, the Jotunbjørn mauling frenziedly inside my chest, desperate to defend itself against the demon. I swung my sword through the air, striking nothing as the witch slipped into shadow, moving along the edge of my vision. She taunted me as I pursued her, shattering trees with each swing at the fleeting echoes of darkness. 

The voice of the witch child moved through the air around me, rising and falling in a haunting singsong voice. 

“Round and round the shadows go 
Through the trees where nightmares grow. 
Ashes, ashes, bodies break 
From the deadlin’, power take.” 

I thrashed at the phantom, each time meeting wisps of darkened mist and the nauseating scent of festering flesh. Her cackling laughter mocked me from the darkness each time I failed to land a strike. 

“Face me, hag!” I bellowed, resisting an unseen abyssal shadow that pressed heavily upon my shoulders. 

“Here I am, little cub,” she taunted, her wicked face mere inches from mine. The Jotunbjørn bit down hard within my chest as I grabbed the witch by the throat and charged toward the nearest tree. 

The gnarled, twisting root of a blackened yew ensnared my ankles, and I fell, coughing and sputtering as thick muddied sludge filled my nostrils. Not mud—a cold pool of blood. As I scrambled to my feet, I found myself atop a sunken knoll, surrounded by several flickering pyres, their flames twisting like hungry serpents in the air. Charcoal stained the slimy grass, forming a wide circle around the tree, the markings thick and uneven as though hastily drawn. Figures encircled me, each adorned with a crimson red cloak as black mist swirled faintly about their feet. 

“W-where are the children?” I managed to say, my throat dry and hoarse. The scent of the brutalized girl tangled around them, weaving through their clothes and clinging to their skin. 

The Romuelians did not speak to me as they lowered their hoods, their eyes clouded and mouths covered in crimson gore, and knelt, prostrating themselves upon the ground and ravenously licking from the pool of cruor at the base of the tree, moaning and chanting in a tongue I did not recognize. Black mist began to pour from the deep-gouged symbols of the ancient, evil-warped yew, their incantation coaxing the darkness out of its trunk until it swallowed them.

“Where are the children, níðingr?” I cried, more forcefully this time, holding my sword out and approaching the place where a Redcloak had once knelt. 

“We’re right here,” the girl’s voice intoned behind him. “Have you been looking for us?” 

I turned on my heels, bringing the sword down upon her as she dodged my blade with ease before ascending into the tree, her sadistic laughter echoing around me. I tilted my head upward, droplets falling upon my face, their warmth a stark contrast to the chill of the air. At first, I thought rain had begun to fall through the choking arborous canopy—until the coppery tang landed upon my lips. The yew’s arms, hunched and heavy, bent at cruel angles as if shaped by suffering itself. Bloody limbs and half-devoured organs hung from them—remnants of children swaying in the wailing wind and draining into the ritualistic knoll upon which I stood. 

My stomach curled on itself, and I stooped over, shaking and retching violently into the marsh, my face painted with their remains. The witch exploited my weakness, shredding her wicked talons across my back, spilling my blood among the innocence, and dispersing into a foggy cloud before I could retaliate. 

The voice of the Hag danced around me, moving unnaturally between my ear and the distant dark. 

“Rockabye children, in the trees’ grasp, 
When the wind blows, the serpents will rasp. 
Deadlin’ we’ll eat, and deadlin’ we’ll claim, 
And bend the world without fire or flame.” 

I became enraged by her sadistic game, grinding my teeth as my blade sliced through empty air, stirring the rancid fog she left behind. Her speech changed suddenly, sinking into something deep, guttural and helish as she flitted along the branches. A severed leg tumbled from the shuddering canopy, falling limp upon my shoulder. 

Pangs of urgency lit ablaze in my soul as the Red Knights approached the crooked yew, reaching toward it as the trunk came alive with death, the bark stretching open and beginning to swallow them whole. I rushed toward them, swinging my sword in a frenzy, cutting down each abhorrent cur within reach of my blade. To my horror, one escaped me, disappearing within the trunk. 

Mist buried me entirely, snuffing the dim flames from the pyres. A deafening silence settled over the bog, once again swallowing all sound, the empty quiet oppressive and constricting. It was broken by a demonic screech, banishing the fog and exposing the creature as it emerged from the yew—a horrid amalgamation of man and forest, its hulking mass black as the bark from which he was born, limbs like barbed branches tipped with cruel, thorned claws. 

My arms trembled from exhaustion as I lifted my sword against the beast, the witch an afterthought in my mind. I narrowly escaped its attack as it leapt toward me with outstretched claws, rolling onto my side and sending it sprawling into the marsh. I found my footing and brought my sword down upon its head, but my blade shattered as it met its inhuman skull. It shrieked in pain, whipping around and goring open my chest, pushing me back upon the knoll. I scarcely knew hand from claw as the Jotunbjørn met the beast in a storm of violence and blood, enveloping my remaining senses and consuming me. I became lost in the sacred bear’s wrath, resigning myself to death, yet matching the bloodlust of the níðingr. By some miracle of the Allfather, I maneuvered myself behind the demon, wrapping my arm around it’s bark-like neck, ripping off its head with a thundering crack. Its body fell at my feet, black mist pouring from the gaping wound. 

As it receded, I saw the níðingr’s true form—a Red Knight with short cropped black hair and a clean shaven face resting lifelessly in my arms. The hag wailed in agony over the loss of her twisted creation, reappearing in the branches above me, tearing at her withering hair. Without hesitation, I threw the níðingr’s lifeless head at her, knocking the witch off her perch and into the bloody knoll. 

"Vita tua mea est," she shrieked as she charged toward me, swinging and clawing with unhinged fury, careless in her desperation to end my life. Her wicked claws gouged across my cheek, narrowly missing my eyes. 

I grasped her throat and slammed her to the ground. Her feet and legs elongated, morphing and twisting into grotesque bird-like limbs that raked and tore against my stomach. I drove my fist into her face repeatedly, splattering skin and peeling muscle away from her skull. The witch went still, alive but unmoving as I dragged her body to the roots of the yew and buried her face-down in the pool of innocent blood. Her muscles tightened in my grasp, and she began to fight for her life with claw and talon in a last ditch effort to preserve her life, forcing me to squeeze her neck harder, her unnatural bones refusing to break. Even as her body stopped thrashing, I refused to let go. Only once Sköll’s rays began to trickle through the forest’s gloom did I release my grip. 

With a heavy heart, I gathered what I could of the children and slumped to my knees, cradling them and begging forgiveness for coming too late.