Chapter 3 eo nw.odt





Chapter 2: Ragnarsson Rock 

I woke up, bolting upright in my bed.

That night my mother died now a little over six years ago, whipped to death by my own father had burned itself into my mind and once again it had revisited me in form of a horrid nightmare.

After dream like that I never tried to find sleep again, fearing the images would come back, so I went to my small desk by the drafty window and sat down to put my thoughts into a little PDD my best friend Yngve.

It was the only Off World High Tech thing I owned. If father knew I had it, he would have taken it away from me, I was certain.

My father had killed my mother with his steel cable whip that fateful night and he had beaten me as well, I almost died that night and more often than not I wished I had so I could be with my mother.

I never understood why he hated me so much or why he had killed my mother.

Of course he was the Clan lord and no one was to question his authority, not man not woman or beast. This was the way of our word and our people.

Only a warrior full of strength and acknowledged before the Elders had the right to challenge him and then follow this challenge with sword and fist to the death.

Only now I realized that I clenched the small device so hard, I was almost breaking it.

I got up, removed the loose floor tile under my bed and retrieved the small leather package. I carefully untied it and revealed my most secret and most treasured posession. The embroidered kerchief of my mother. The delicate fabric was still soiled with the now dark brown stains of my mother's blood.

I fought the tears and the tight knot in my throat and I prayed. “Hail thee oh Odin Allfather, hail thee oh Thor. Not man, not woman or beast shall harm my father Isegrim. Nay let it be my hand. Like Váli let my sole purpose be revenge. Let it be me that grinds his skull under my heel. Not Valkyries will hail his demise but the wraith of Hel and torment shall be his!”

Nothing sort of my death would prevent me from making true of this vow.

Midril, the cook had explained it to me more than once, and she knew every rumor, gossip and local story there was to know.

<p lang="en-US">Father was the oldest heir to the Olafson Clan. It was an old Clan and its linage reached back to the time when the first settlers arrived on Nilfeheim.

<p lang="en-US">Lineage and being of the Old Clans had great value in our society, but the Olafson Clan was poor and had very little resources. They had to hire their men out to other clans because they could not afford their own Hunt Subs or fishing boats.

<p lang="en-US">My mother on the other hand was of the Ragnarsson Clan, also one of the Old Clans and perhaps the richest off them all.

<p lang="en-US">Her father and my Grandfather was credited with increasing the wealth and influence of the Ragnarsson Clan even beyond our own world.

<p lang="en-US">Grandfather's only son, my mother's older brother had died training for the Ancient Rite of Passage, he and his hunting Sub were crushed by an angry Tyranno Fin so the story went. There were no other sons only a daughter, my mother.

<p lang="en-US">While it would be perfectly normal for a woman to inherit on almost any other world in the Union, here on Nilfeheim, it was the First Born son that got everything and decided what share his mother, brothers and sisters would get from an inheritance.

<p lang="en-US">Marriages between Clans were arranged between the parents and daughters were given a dowry by their fathers, the young people had little choice in who they were allowed to date, love or marry.

<p lang="en-US">Volund Olafson and Erik Gustav Ragnarsson had arranged for such a union.

<p lang="en-US">Once the last male of the Ragnarssons died, the clan would cease to exist and all its wealth, possessions and influence would be absorbed by the Olafson Clan.

<p lang="en-US">My father, however was in love with another woman,

<p lang="en-US">Her family, Nubhir hide scrubbers, low men. Employed as day laborers in the Olafson tanneries without a name was as poor as one could be. Even the thought of her just being a mistress was unsavory to say the least. Her being his wife simply unthinkable. However it was her, father loved.

<p lang="en-US">It was for this reason, Midril explained to me that he hated my mother from the start as he hated everything the Ragnarsson Clans stood for.

<p lang="en-US">He wanted me dead as well,but it was me who was the heir to the Ragnarsson riches.Father was only the steward of the burg and nothing else. Once I was declared adult I would inherit it all and then father could order me to give it to him, as he was the clan chief. Of course I could also deny him and fight him for the right to be clan chief.

<p lang="en-US">If I died before that day, my grandfather would be free of his oath to make me his heir, chase the Olafson's off his burg. Something I knew he wanted to do ever since Isegrim had killed his daughter.

<p lang="en-US">I put the pad down. I was tired and I glanced over to the bed, but there was no rest for me in a night like this. I could not go back to sleep without seeing the lifeless bloody heap that had been my mother, being awake was better.

<p lang="en-US">It was almost time for the kitchen servants to get up and prepare breakfast.

<p lang="en-US">Our Burg was home to about four hundred people. There were the clan warriors and their families. Freemen associated to either clan and the many Low men and day laborers. On Nilfeheim Clans islands were almost like little towns or villages. Freemen owned their own places and worked for salaries or wages for the clans various endeavors and businesses.

<p lang="en-US">While the Olafson burg was small, it was one one of the biggest islands with a small village. Ragnarsson Rock was a very small island but had the one of the biggest burgs, with many levels above ground and many more below.

<p lang="en-US">Traditionally almost all clans engaged in fishing, to some it was their only source of income. The bigger clans however maintained a variety of businesses. The Olafsons fished and hunted and had large Fangsnapper herds down on the permanent ice of the south pole, at least until the last big Clan war. They tanned leather and once were famous for the Olafson Ale.

<p lang="en-US">The Ragnarssons also fished, but also raised Nubhir Wolfs for fur, had Fangsnapper herds, tanned leather, maintained six hunting subs and owned the only rock quarry on Nilfeheim, about five klicks north of Halstaad Fjord on Bifrost the largest island on the planet. My grandfather had expanded the wealth of the Ragnarssons beyond the planet.

<p lang="en-US">Breakfast was served in the High Hall for members of the first family and in the common hall for the freemen and servants.

<p lang="en-US">The High Hall was where my father and the exalted members of the clan would eat. Of course I was not part of that since mother died, as I was barred from setting foot into the High Halls.

<p lang="en-US">I dressed and headed down to the kitchens. That early there was little chance I would run into Isegrim or my brothers and I could sit by the hearth and Midril would give me some hot rolls in exchange for hauling supplies from the basement.

<p lang="en-US">As I reached the backyard where the entrance to the kitchen was I could already smell the fresh bread Midril was baking.

<p lang="en-US">Isegrim was the head of the Clan, but Midril was in charge of the kitchen and her staff. She ruled over it with her ever present long wooden cooking spoon. She often that spoon wielded like a club or sword and she had knocked me over the head with it on more than one occasion. Admittedly in her defense I usually earned it for stealing a hot cake or a piece of roast.

<p lang="en-US">Most of the commoners and most of the servants, especially those that came from the Ragnarsson clan treated me well and I knew some felt sorry for my fate and they all knew what happened to my mother, although no one ever really talked about it.

<p lang="en-US">The kitchen yard was on the eastern side of the burg, a small cobblestone yard bordered by the high sea wall onto the west side and the entrance to my tower to the south. There was a small gate on the opposite site from where you could reach the old tunnels that used to be an escape passage from the days of the Clan wars.

<p lang="en-US">Parts of this was now converted as storage, were we kept barrels of Tyranno oil and bales of sea weed.

<p lang="en-US">A long forgotten secret corridor was there as well complete with a concealed door that led right between the walls of the Great Hall where you could sneak in and listen to everything that went on, and through a concealed crack you could even see some of it.

<p lang="en-US">Just as I had reached the yard, Midril opened the door and sloshed a bucket of hot liquid onto the cobblestones.

<p lang="en-US">She saw me and stemmed her fists in her wide hips." Why am I carrying the mop water outside if you are already up and linger around like a starving Snapperfish? Get your behind in the kitchen and finish mopping the Common Hall and when you're done the bread and the breakfast ham will be ready."

<p lang="en-US">The kitchen was big and warm and always spotless clean. She would not have it any other way. The kitchen was pretty much the same since they rebuild the burg over 1000 years ago. The only modern equipment was the large convection oven, the big bread dough mixer and water heater. Everything else was traditional and old-fashioned, Thickgrass-seaweed compressed in into dense bricks served as fuel for the main stove, not that there was need to use fossil fuels as the Burg had a power generator running on hydrogen, but that was not traditional. Food had to be cooked over fire.

<p lang="en-US">I grabbed the mob and headed for the still empty Common Hall, the stone floor was gleaming clean but that did not matter to Midril who wanted it mopped never the less.

<p lang="en-US">Suddenly there was loud screaming and horrible noise of crashing and breaking from the kitchen. Something not human shrieking with an ear piercing sound.

<p lang="en-US">I ran towards the noise, slipped and fell on the slick floor as I reached the kitchen.

<p lang="en-US">The tidy kitchen was now a tumbled mess. The liquid that covered the floor right by the door was thick dark and red,. It was blood! In the center of the gory puddle a badly mangled body

<p lang="en-US">I only recognized Gudrun, one of the cooks by the frilled apron the mangled corpse wore.

<p lang="en-US">A large Fangsnapper tore through the kitchen, smashing furniture and throwing utensils everywhere. It was about to attack Midril again. She already had lost an arm, bleeding heavily, still on her feet, brandished her wooden spoon against the dagger sharp rows of teeth of the furious beast.

<p lang="en-US">The back door was smashed to pieces and marked the way were the animal gained entrance to the kitchen. Despite all the confusion and horror I wondered how the beast got here. I could not understand how the Fangsnapper managed to get through the steel gates or get ovr the high outer walls.

<p lang="en-US">Our burg was in the middle of the ocean and far away from the hunting grounds of these beasts usually only found in the southern pole region.

<p lang="en-US">I struggled to my feet, slipping twice again. There not far from the dead cooks hand lay a big cooking knife. I did not think much and what I did then was more instinct than any planned course of action.

<p lang="en-US">I grabbed that knife and with a jump was on one of the big stainless steel kitchen tables and catapulted myself brandishing the knife with both hands onto the back of the beast and plunged the razor sharp steel into its back right behind the skull.

<p lang="en-US">The Snapper screamed even louder tried to shake me off. I didn't have a very good hold. With my left hand cramped around the left head fin, my legs clamping as hard as I could to the still moist body of the beast and plunged the knife as often as I could deep into the same wound.

<p lang="en-US">Hot blood sprayed from the wound gushing all over me. It stank sickly sweet and the odor mingled with the mouldy fish scent Fangsnappers were famous for.

<p lang="en-US">As much as I was in danger of getting seriously hurt and maimed, as much as I was afraid there was a part of me deep down that enjoyed every moment of it.

<p lang="en-US">The Fangsnapper collapsed literally inches from Midril. Only now I saw she was protecting little Elena the daughter of Gudrun. I remembered that she was six or seven years old and always in the kitchen either playing ot helping with small chores.

<p lang="en-US">The beast, in its death throes twitched to the side and I flew of its back and hit the stove. Before I felt the actual pain of being burned I could hear the hissing sound my skin as it made connecting to the hot steel.

<p lang="en-US">Now men came rushing in, servants and workers that were about to get breakfast and alarmed by the noise.

<p lang="en-US">Greifen, who was responsible for the Clans Nubhir Farm and one of our most profitable venues took charge of the situation. He bandaged Midril wound and she was rushed away, most likely to be flown to town where she would get help at the Union Clinic.

<p lang="en-US">I heard my father coming. His bellowing voice heralded im long before he appeared. He then stood in the door glancing over the mess.

<p lang="en-US">Greifen said." Your son Eric has bravely attacked the Fangsnapper with a kitchen knife and killed it. He saved the lives of Midril and the young girl. He is badly burned and he too should go to the Union Clinic."

<p lang="en-US">My father growled." I bet the cursed Elhir Clan has dropped that Fangsnapper into our yard! They can't stand the fact that we are now merging with the Ragnarssons."

<p lang="en-US">Greifen nodded." Yes, Sire, I was thinking the same. There is now way that Fangsnapper could have made it up here any other way.

<p lang="en-US">Sigmund, our harpooner was sure the Elhir were planning something ever since we got into a bar fight with them last week I and broke Hilfheim's leg. He is of the Elhir Clan, as you know Sire."

<p lang="en-US">"We will discuss how we retaliate on the table tonight! Now I expect this kitchen to be cleaned by this failure of a son! If he had kept watch in the tower as I expected him to do, he would have seen who did this. If he would be a real son of mine I would look upon the bodies of the intruders and not some worthless beast."

<p lang="en-US">He turned to leave." Let him tend to his own wounds. If I hear that anyone wasted time helping that whelp I will break every bone in their bodies!"