klatch
12-03-2010, 12:15 AM
Heavily influenced by Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Not finished.
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the whale
They drifted from land, being carried by a strong tidal surge, seething with frothy dark water. it was as if the land was regurgitating these mongrel raiders, ridding them of it's pristine alabaster peaks and creaseless alpine forests.
they rowed unstopping for hours, and soon days. the wind began to aid them in their quest and the grimy men made bold claims of supernatural favoritism and beat their chests toward the gray sky.
with no rowing necessary, the men began to lounge on the deck. A whale appeared.
there! the cursed and forsaken spirits of a crew of marauders like ourselves. they gave in to the waves and the abyss transformed them into that yonder leviathan, said a grizzled man. his face was old, his wrinkles were dark with dirt and his battered chainmail hauberk was salty and rusty.
most of the crew gravely nodded, knowing his words to be true.
A younger man laughed loudly.
You seafarers are a superstitious bunch, my father was right. Yonder is a great fish and only that. Spawned from the depths of the watery abyss yes, but just as all denizens of this vast ocean are.
The norsemen looked at the old man
Look here boys, the inlander is condemning us as scared fools. His first time out of lands sight.
The old man laughed to himself and confidently strolled to the empty oars to sleep.
A younger raider, his fourth time out in the sea, bitterly voiced his opinion
You men from the inland valleys are a funny lot. I've heard the tales you men talk of in hushed voices, when the fire coals are near spent. Was it monsters from the fjords? or beasts from the chasms? you've no room to voice your opinion.
The inciter of the argument answered quickly, letting hints of anger radiat from his tone, anger one often feels when a childhood belief is stomped on.
Animals dead in their folds and children taken in their sleep! proof! what proof do you have of that this fish is lost souls. none, you base it upon fear and ignorance.
The seamen walked forward and hit the inlander in the throat; putting him on the ground, a heap of breathing chainmail. The downed man swung his leg around and knocked the seamen down. A whirl of gray riddled with desperation and strained muscles toppled across the deck of the longboat for half a minute until the inlander stood with a slick blade. He got up and went to the oars with the old man. the crew dumped the young seamen into the dark ocean and talked of past raids.
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Soft beaches were spotted by the norsemen and they exited their serpentine vessel and walked toward the austere monastery that the morning fog partly hid. The raiders brandished heavy iron axes and simple steel blades that they used with straightforward brutality and ease. As they neared, hunchbacked and slender images of monks appeared outside the edifice and upon seeing them one maruader let out a great roar which bellowed and reverberated in the quite dewy morning. His warcry was long and his jaw was wide and his gaping maw had a mandible fit for cracking bones apart.
The rest of the group likened the roar as a suitable substitute for the war drum that one can hear echoing through the fjords and firths of the homeland. With noise in their ears' they charged the monks. Their advancement formed an amorphous blob of gray and their raised axes were reminiscent of mammoth femurs fashioned as war-clubs by the archaic and tribal trailblazers of war.
They overran the abbey wildly and disorderly. One monk desperately armed himself with the ceremonial blade of some canonized knight whose tomb was in the monastery. The monk stood in an empty hallway and waited, wobbling the bejeweled sword awkwardly. A veteran raider ran into the corridor, his knotted patriarchal beard was adorn with bones and beads and it moved like a wave. The norsemen sardonically laughed as he charged the monk and casually slew the holy man with a cleave of his axe.
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the whale
They drifted from land, being carried by a strong tidal surge, seething with frothy dark water. it was as if the land was regurgitating these mongrel raiders, ridding them of it's pristine alabaster peaks and creaseless alpine forests.
they rowed unstopping for hours, and soon days. the wind began to aid them in their quest and the grimy men made bold claims of supernatural favoritism and beat their chests toward the gray sky.
with no rowing necessary, the men began to lounge on the deck. A whale appeared.
there! the cursed and forsaken spirits of a crew of marauders like ourselves. they gave in to the waves and the abyss transformed them into that yonder leviathan, said a grizzled man. his face was old, his wrinkles were dark with dirt and his battered chainmail hauberk was salty and rusty.
most of the crew gravely nodded, knowing his words to be true.
A younger man laughed loudly.
You seafarers are a superstitious bunch, my father was right. Yonder is a great fish and only that. Spawned from the depths of the watery abyss yes, but just as all denizens of this vast ocean are.
The norsemen looked at the old man
Look here boys, the inlander is condemning us as scared fools. His first time out of lands sight.
The old man laughed to himself and confidently strolled to the empty oars to sleep.
A younger raider, his fourth time out in the sea, bitterly voiced his opinion
You men from the inland valleys are a funny lot. I've heard the tales you men talk of in hushed voices, when the fire coals are near spent. Was it monsters from the fjords? or beasts from the chasms? you've no room to voice your opinion.
The inciter of the argument answered quickly, letting hints of anger radiat from his tone, anger one often feels when a childhood belief is stomped on.
Animals dead in their folds and children taken in their sleep! proof! what proof do you have of that this fish is lost souls. none, you base it upon fear and ignorance.
The seamen walked forward and hit the inlander in the throat; putting him on the ground, a heap of breathing chainmail. The downed man swung his leg around and knocked the seamen down. A whirl of gray riddled with desperation and strained muscles toppled across the deck of the longboat for half a minute until the inlander stood with a slick blade. He got up and went to the oars with the old man. the crew dumped the young seamen into the dark ocean and talked of past raids.
----------------------------------------------
Soft beaches were spotted by the norsemen and they exited their serpentine vessel and walked toward the austere monastery that the morning fog partly hid. The raiders brandished heavy iron axes and simple steel blades that they used with straightforward brutality and ease. As they neared, hunchbacked and slender images of monks appeared outside the edifice and upon seeing them one maruader let out a great roar which bellowed and reverberated in the quite dewy morning. His warcry was long and his jaw was wide and his gaping maw had a mandible fit for cracking bones apart.
The rest of the group likened the roar as a suitable substitute for the war drum that one can hear echoing through the fjords and firths of the homeland. With noise in their ears' they charged the monks. Their advancement formed an amorphous blob of gray and their raised axes were reminiscent of mammoth femurs fashioned as war-clubs by the archaic and tribal trailblazers of war.
They overran the abbey wildly and disorderly. One monk desperately armed himself with the ceremonial blade of some canonized knight whose tomb was in the monastery. The monk stood in an empty hallway and waited, wobbling the bejeweled sword awkwardly. A veteran raider ran into the corridor, his knotted patriarchal beard was adorn with bones and beads and it moved like a wave. The norsemen sardonically laughed as he charged the monk and casually slew the holy man with a cleave of his axe.