Michael Crichton - Eaters of the Dead

Here is how the battle waged. Of the company of Buliwyf, three were dead, Roneth and Halga, both earls, and Edgtho, a warrior. The first had his chest torn open. The second had his spine broken. The third had his head torn off in the manner I had already witnessed. All these warriors were dead.

Wounded were two others, Haltaf and Rethel. Haltaf had lost an ear, and Rethel two fingers of his right hand. Both men were not mortally injured, and made no complaint, for it is the Northman way to bear the wounds of battle cheerfully, and to praise above all the retaining of life.

As for Buliwyf and Herger and all the others, they were soaked in blood as if they had bathed in it. Now I shall say what many will not believe, and yet it was so: our company had killed not one of the mist monsters. Each had slunk away, some perhaps mortally wounded, and yet they had escaped.

Herger said thus: “I saw two of their number carrying a third, who was dead.” Perhaps this was so, for all generally agreed upon it. I learned that the mist monsters never leave one of their kind to the society of men, but rather will risk great dangers to retrieve him from human purview. So also will they go to extreme lengths to keep a victim’s head, and we could not find the head of Edgtho in any place; the monsters had carried it off with them.

Then Buliwyf spoke, and Herger told me his words thus: “Look, I have retained a trophy of the night’s bloody deeds. See, here is an arm of one of the fiends.”

And, true to his word, Buliwyf held the arm of one of the mist monsters, cut off at the shoulder by the great sword Runding. All the warriors crowded around to examine it. I perceived it thusly: it appeared to be small, with a hand of abnormally large size. But the forearm and upper arm were not large to match it, although the muscles were powerful. There was long black matted hair on all parts of the arm except the palm of the hand. Finally it is to say that the arm stank as the whole beast stank, with the fetid smell of the black mist.

Now all the warriors cheered Buliwyf, and his sword Runding. The fiend’s arm was hung from the rafters of the great hall of Hurot, and marveled at by all the people of the kingdom of Rothgar. Thus ended the first battle with the wendol.

VERILY, THE PEOPLE OF THE NORTH COUNTRY NEVER act as human beings of reason and sense. After the attack of the mist monsters, and their beating back by Buliwyf and his company, with me amongst them, the men of the kingdom of Rothgar did nothing.

There was no celebration, no feasting, no jubilation or display of happiness. From far and wide, the people of the kingdom came to view the dangling arm of the fiend, which hung in the great hall, and this they greeted with much amazement and astonishment. But Rothgar himself, the half-blind old man, expressed no pleasure, and presented Buliwyf and his company with no gifts, planned no feasts, gave him no slaves, no silver, no precious garments, or any other sign of honor.

Contrary to any expression of pleasure, King Rothgar made a long face and was solemn, and seemed more fearful than he had been before. I myself, though I did not speak it aloud, suspected that Rothgar preferred his earlier condition, before the black mist was beaten.

Nor was Buliwyf different in manner. He called for no ceremonies, no feasting, no drinking or eating of food. The nobles who had died valiantly in the battle of the night were quickly placed in pits with a wooden roof over the top, and left there for the assigned ten days. There was haste in this matter.

Yet it was only in the laying out of the dead warriors that Buliwyf and his comrades showed happiness, or allowed themselves any smiles. After further time among the Northmen, I learned that they smile upon any death in battle, for this is pleasure taken on behalf of the dead person, and not the living. They are pleased when any man dies a warrior’s death. Also the opposite is held true by them; they show distress when a man dies in his sleep, or in a bed. They say of such a man, “He died as a cow in the straw.” This is no insult, but it is a reason for mourning the death.

The Northmen believe that how a man dies determines his condition in the afterlife, and they value the death of a warrior in battle above all. A “straw death” is shameful.

Any man who dies in his sleep is said by them to be strangled by the maran, or mare of the night. This creature is a woman, which makes such a death shameful, for to die at the hands of a woman is degrading above all things.

Also they say to die without your weapons is degrading, and a Northman warrior will always sleep with his weapons, so that if the maran comes at night, he will have his weapons at hand. Seldom does a warrior die of some illness, or of the enfeeblement of age. I heard of one king, of the name Ane, who lived to such an age that he became as an infant, toothless and existing upon the food of an infant, and he spent all his days in his bed drinking milk from a horn. But this was told to me as most uncommon in the North country. With my own eyes I saw few men grown very old, by which I mean grown old to the time when the beard is not only white but falling out from the chin and face.

Several of their women live to great age, especially such as the old crone they call the angel of death; these old women are counted as having magical powers in healing of wounds, casting of spells, banishing evil influences, and foretelling the future of events.

The women of the North people do not fight among themselves, and often did I see them intercede in a growing brawl or duel of two men, to quench the rising anger. This they will do especially if the warriors are thickened and slow with drink. This is often the circumstance.

Now, the Northmen, who drink much liquor, and at all hours of the day and night, drink nothing on the day after the battle. Seldom did the people of Rothgar offer them a cup, and when it happened, the cup was refused. This I found most puzzling, and spoke of it finally to Herger.

Herger shook his shoulders in the Northmen’s gesture of unconcern, or indifference. “Everyone is afraid,” he said.

I inquired why there should still be a reason to fear. He spoke thus: “It is because they know that the black mist will return.”

Now I admit that I was puffed with the arrogance of a fighting man, though in truth I knew I did not deserve such a posture. Even so, I felt exhilaration at my survival, and the people of Rothgar treated me as one of a company of mighty warriors. I said boldly, “Who cares for that? If they come again, we shall beat them a second time.”

Indeed, I was vain as a young cock, and I am abashed now to think upon my strutting. Herger responded: “The kingdom of Rothgar has no fighting warriors or earls; they are all long since dead, and we alone must defend the kingdom. Yesterday we were thirteen. Today we are ten, and of that ten two are wounded and cannot fight as full men. The black mist is angered, and it will take a terrible vengeance.”

I said to Herger, who had suffered some minor wounds in the fray-but nothing so fierce as the claw marks upon my own face, which I bore proudly-that I feared nothing the demons would do.

He answered curtly that I was an Arab and understood nothing of the ways of the North country, and he told me that the vengeance of the black mist would be terrible and profound. He said, “They will return as Korgon.”

I did not know the sense of the word. “What is Korgon?”

He said to me, “The glowworm dragon, which swoops down through the air.”

Now this seemed fanciful, but I had already seen the sea monsters just as they said that such beasts truly lived, and also I saw Herger’s strained and tired countenance, and I perceived that he believed in the glowworm dragon. I said, “When will Korgon come?”