Wolf's Bane

The cold breeze of the mountainside hit Ivar with the same amount of velocity as a catapult besieging a city. It almost branded the boy's face with the mark of frost. The blizzard numbed the drengr's skin. His lips began bruising. He could barely keep his hands uncovered even when veiled by gloves.

His journey through the snowy mountains was taking its toll but Ivar could not return before the week was over. This was his Proving and he had to survive alone in the wild. If he could he was also tasked with bringing a wolf's hide with him, then truly he would be regarded with respect by everyone. It was common knowledge that the fiercest of warriors wore a wolf pelt to show that they had bested what was considered the king of the forest, a beast descended from Fenrir himself.

This was the fifth day; his tiny goatee caught the colour of snow. His weapons, a short sword and a small axe, his people called it a hatchet, it was useful in both close quarters and ranged attacks. The hatchet was special to Ivar, it had the runic engravements for strength, power and pride carved into the hilt and on the blade, the rune for the word ''storm'' had been put there by his mother. It reminded him that he was storm-born and the blizzard outside was his realm.

After wading past the freezing ice for several more hours, Ivar found a cave entrance. Having spent the previous night outside, he seemed happy. The cave was pitch black and Ivar wondered what sort of slithering vermin might be hiding in the darkest corners of what would be his shelter for the night. He used the blade of his axe to ignite a fire using a stone he picked up on the way in. The wood he gathered earlier was kept warm in the satchel at his side. The crackling fire warmed his face and body, it returned it to the pink complexion that his skin was used to, as blood resumed circulation.

He slept well, but morning came sooner than he expected. Fatigue and alertness assembled. It was an odd feeling one that he rarely experienced, but the sound of the howl resonated throughout the cave bouncing from one stalagmite to the next and finally into Ivar's ears. The young lad jumped as he waited for the spawn of Fenrir to emerge from the void of the inner cave.

Ivar stood at the ready with his hatchet and short sword. The wolf slowly materialised out of the darkness, fangs showing the rage on his pointy head. The wolf growled at his potential prey, it sprang on his haunches, right then left and he darted to close the space between them swiftly in a zigzag. It lunged and hit Ivar as they tumbled to the ground together. The beast was more massive than a normal wolf. An alpha with fur the colour of smoke. Ivar grimaced as he fought to keep the wolf's canines from piercing his jugular. He held him with both hands, sweating and gritting his teeth in a scowl. The wolf scratched at him, blood dripping from the boy's arm as he made for his axe. Picked it up with a quick movement of the arm crashed the axe directly into his fanged opponent's skull. The whimpering wolf fell to the cold stony ground dying slowly but surely.

Ivar's heavy breathing slowed to a steady pace as composure returned to him and he could take a moment to rest. He rose to his feet, looked at the wolf and smiled. Though his smile would not last long for a few more howls made their way from the same location as the first. The Alpha's pack came to avenge their leader. Ivar felt like an idiot. He should have thought about the pack. It mattered not now. The fight resumed. Hatchet flew across the cave toward one of the wolves dashing at the boy. It caught the animal head-on, misplacing any notions it may have had of murdering the young lad.

Presently the remaining two wolves circled around Ivar. Even beasts have knowledge of strategy it seemed. A pincer move. The only weapon he had left was the short sword. It belonged to his father. A man with the same fine brown hair as his son's. Siegfried was his name. Ivar remembered little about the man. He left to go on a Viking one time and never returned. Compensation was brought to his mother by the town's Earl. That was where his mind raced as the wolves preyed on him with their raunchy fangs and feral eyes. His mother. The Shield-Maiden Asha. Renowned warrior throughout all of Norway and all the way to England. But she left the life or raiding behind when Ivar was born. He wanted to make her proud. Killing the two bastard beasts before him would do the job.

The wolves brusquely broke off into an unannounced stupor of bloodlust. They charged. Ivar rolled to the side as the creatures hugged one another in mid-air with a loud thud. Whimpering all the while. But before one could notice the man's absence, it was met with steel into his abdomen. Eyes shutting slowly and blood flowing rapidly. Once warm and full of hungry rage, now it lay at the boy's feet. A carcass of meat and bone and fur.

That was not the end, however, as the remaining child of Fenrir held a simmering growl. Stinking breath visible due to the low temperature of the cave. The two locked eyes. Ivar noticed the wolf wore the same shade of sapphire. Two gems shimmering in the light of the fire, only confronted by another set of gems, the drengr's eyes. Slowly and steadily, Ivar moved toward the fire. The wolf suddenly averted its ogling eyes. The queerest thing occurred. The wolf looked around. At its former companions, at its former Alpha. Then it began whimpering. It sounded more like a cry than anything else. Readjusting his vision in Ivar's direction, he appeared sapped of any form of vengeance or malignancy.

Another howl came through. The last one was weaker, perhaps from a younger wolf. Ivar locked eyes with the beast once again. A mental connection linked their minds and somehow the lad understood immediately what he had done. He took a good look at the crime scene around him then sighed. A teardrop ran down his cheek. As the she-wolf stared directly at him, the young boy closed his eyes approvingly and nodded, then the next second or so the wolf who had once been his enemy, turned the other way and disappeared in the darkness of the gargantuan cave. Her child waited for her, scared and alone. A feeling Ivar related to. There was no need for further violence and so both he and the wolf came to an understanding.

The next day he packed the wolves he had killed. He wished not to leave them rotting in the dark. They deserved better. They helped accomplish his task and he was grateful to them. He would return home that day back to his town, no longer as the simple Ivar but as the Viking warrior Ivar Wolf's Bane.