Shallow snow

A large crowd had gathered by the harbor of this crowded town, where there was some ongoing commotion and in the middle of it was a young teenager and a veteran warrior staring at each other. If stares could kill, the young man's gaze would have rendered the warrior to dust if looks could kill.

But looks could sadly not kill, so they were simply standing there in a staring contest until the warrior said. "Young Ralf, what you accuse me of is but slander. And you are tainting my honor as a warrior and a free man. Do you have any proof of these vile accusations?" The teenager named Ralf got even angrier after hearing this man's words.

He had raped his mother and then tortured her with burning coals and hot steel. The smell of burning flesh and the horrid screams of his mother is etched into this boy's mind, but that was not all. He had also done the same to his sisters before burning the house while his still living, and his impaled father was inside to burn with his family's corpses.

But he had missed a spot in the humble house where young Ralf was hiding, so he was spared by the grace of the gods. Nevertheless, he swore that he would avenge his mother for the pain and suffering the man had done to her. Moreover, as a follower of the Aesir (Norse gods), he swore on his honor that he would not rest until the man had suffered like them. And he promised that for the crime of defiling and murdering his sisters, he would give up his life to kill the man.

But Ralf swore that oath to the gods, his dead family, and himself many autumns ago. And he was not here to hear the man's plea for mercy or words of guilt. That was something he was hoping to hear as the man was drowning in his blood. But now he was there in front of the man for he had lost control of his emotions when he had seen the man, and now he was cursing himself for confronting him like this, but he swore that this man would die by his hands no matter the price he has to pay, be it in blood or limb. He shall die.

'If I leave now, I can avoid making an even bigger scene, and I found him after so many years, ARGH!! Why did I get so emotional? I can't fight him here. I want to see him suffer, and they probably won't let me skin him alive. So I'll have to bide my time for now.'

With those thoughts, he began to turn around and run through the gathered crowd but stopped in his tracks when he heard the man shout at him. "He can't even stand up for what he just accused me of. What a pitiful boy! Go and hide, for if I see you again, I will not be this lenient!" But just as abruptly as he had stopped, he started to run towards the woods to hide from the eyes of the crowd.

'Why oh why, did I have to do it like that? I could just kill him in his sleep. But that won't be enough. He will pay, and I just need to find the right moment to strike.' With those thoughts, he moved seemingly unhindered through the woods towards a clearing, and then he went to the trees and checked the bark for something. 'Is it this tree?' After a couple of seconds analyzing the bark, he went to another tree and so it continued for some time until; 'Finally, I found it! Why did I make the mark so shallow? takes forever to find it.'

Then he started to count his steps, and when he got to eleven, he stopped and started digging with his hands. 'The ground is getting cooler, and it has not rained for weeks. I feel it in my knees that the rain will pour today.' Then he stopped digging for he had found what he was searching for, a sword and axe which belonged to his father, it was all he had left from his family. He could not stop his eyes from crying, but his hands gripped the weapons firmly.

After a while, he had calmed down, and he could see dark clouds on the horizon and smiled while kissing the blade's hilt. 'Today, you will be avenging your master.'

In the meantime, in the town, the man accused of rape and murder went to his Jarl in the great hall where he lived. "Einar, did you hear of the incident by the harbor?" as the man slightly nodded his head before his Jarl. "Yes, I have Trygve. A boy was accusing you of killing and raping his family. So I made him an outlaw for accusing you of these crimes without any evidence, and I let it be known to all."

The Jarl stroked his armrest, puffed out his chest in a goofy manner, and let out a grunt and spoke."Bah, as if I care as long as he does not have any evidence, then it should be fine, should it not?" The Jarl just waved his hand in dismissal because he did not care for that, and he did not know of the family his right-hand man had supposedly killed. The Jarl knew he had probably killed them for some kind of minor offense like spilling some ale on Trygve's shoes or something.

After the Jarl's little introspection, he waved his hand to indicate that Trygve should move closer. "We need to talk about Konungr ("Minor King") Torfinn. He is planning something big and will probably invade us and try to unite the whole of the south. So we need to get ready for conflict with him and all his Drotten (barons), so we might need to call the other Jarls to our side in order to crush him." The man Trygve started to stroke his dark beard while thinking before he spoke his mind. "But I am afraid that he has probably already started to make his moves to ensure that we would not unite to destroy him. So he has probably already talked with them and promised them something in return for not helping us." The Jarl gave out a loud sigh and motioned for the nearby slave to give him a drink to calm down his mind.

When the sun began to lick the horizon with its last rays of light, the boy was waiting nearby the great hall hidden in the shadows waiting for the man Trygve to leave the hall of the Jarl Einar. The ground turned muddy as the first rain trickled from the sky. The boy's eyes soon saw the door of the hall swing open, and Trygve left the hall drunk with sloppy steps as Ralf followed behind him, as Trygve made his way home. After a while, the old warrior began to get an eerie feeling as he began to get closer to his home. He started to feel as if someone was watching him so he turned to see a boy standing there, staring at him, but could not see the face of the person, but lightning lit the sky and showed the face of a boy, that's when it dawned on him. He remembers, but as his foggy mind realized who it was, he had already wasted valuable time.

He saw the boy drawing out a sword and was running towards him. Unfortunately, his reaction was too slow, and a flash of light reflected from the thunder above on the blade before him. His feet were slippery on the muddy ground, making him fall as the boy swung his sword at him. He began to scream, "Stop, I have not done anythiNARGGGGH!!!" And with that, the blade pierced his stomach, and the rainfall became heavier while the sky roared with thunder.

With the light from the thunder, he could see the smile on the boy's face becoming wider as he struggled to get the sword from his belt loose but to no avail as the boy twisted the sword to drag it out from his stomach as he screamed in agony. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!" The boy then left him there bleeding and started to walk towards Trygve's house with a wicked smile plastered on his face. It did not take long before two children and a woman holding a baby in her arms walked towards Trygve. When he could recognize them, his face paled as he saw Ralf's sword arch from behind them, and the sword struck the mother's legs, and she tumbled to the ground while screaming as the pain consumed her thoughts while she bore witness to her husband's condition. The boy arched his sword once more but towards the older child.

A boy no older than seven winters looked at his mother when she hit the ground but did not have enough time to react before the sword struck his legs and fell to the cold and muddy ground. Then Ralf turned to the second kid who stood there with trembling legs as she saw her father bleeding and then hearing her mothers scream and subsequently seeing both her brother and mother fall to the ground, she could do nothing but cry and fall to the ground, but that did not stop Ralf for he arched his sword once more. Instead of a deep cut to the leg, it got dismembered, and the mud beneath her turned crimson with her blood.

Ralf could only hear the roaring thunder, for, in his mind, he had suppressed their screams of agony. Then he sheathed his sword in its scabbard to turn to his father's axe. An even more wicked and wider smile carved his now distorted face as the ax arched and struck the mother's back, and he could feel her ribs crack, and so he tore out the axe and arched it once more but aimed it to strike the other side of her back, and as his axe tore through her flesh, he could feel her ribs crack once more.

After that, he planted the axe on the muddy ground below his feet, placed his hands one in each hole he had carved at her back, and tore with all his strength until he heard a loud crack. Her chest caved inwards as her solar plexus had now been broken. After that, he put his hands deeper inside her back, ripped out both her lungs holding one in each of his hands, and placed them on her shoulders, and as she took her last breath, the lungs expanded, and he started to laugh. His laughter was so loud that his body began to tremble with excitement. Finally, her body lost all strength and tumbled headfirst into the blood-soaked mud.

He could see the despair in Trygve's eyes as his wife's body hit the mud, which made him laugh even harder and seeing the great warrior in front of him feeling this despair made him very happy. So he turned towards the oldest of Trygve's children and repeated the process on his son. As the axe struck the back, lightning soared the sky. Still, it did not deter him, he continued, now arching back, and his strike hit true once more. He then ripped open the back with his bare hands to do the same thing he did to the boy's mother.

As the boy's lifeless body hit the mud, he turned to the dismembered girl who had seen all this and was trying to escape, tears flowing down her cheeks. But she could not stand up, as she had only one remaining leg, and she had lost too much blood to have the energy to crawl for any help, but she tried nonetheless. But it was for naught, for the boy turned her over and arced his ax and planted it in her rib cage while whispering in her ear. "Don't blame me. Your father killed my family so I'm merely repaying the favor." with that, he kissed her forehead before her eyes became lifeless like those of her mother and brother.

Trygve at this point, could only watch as Ralf killed his family without showing any mercy and willingness to stop. So Ralf stood up and walked to the mother's corpse, where he picked up the little baby who was screaming with all its might. Still, Ralf was not fazed and threw the baby at the father and drew the sword once more and arched it high towards the sky, and then it drove down just like the lightning above them, and it drove through the baby and through Trygve's chest with little to no resistance. He left the sword there as he took a step back while staring into the eyes of the man who had killed and raped his family. He looked the man in the eyes and said. "And now you shall perish like the rest." He then turned around and pointed at the house, which was up in flames. Although the rain poured, it did not stop the flames from eating the house violently.