Bjorn’s eyes darted all over the place as he walked down the street allotted to his homeland’s refugees, accompanied by Cecile. Watching for those who watched him and avoiding those who met his gaze.
He crossed his arms, holding them close to his body.
They were mostly elderly, mothers and children. The rest likely stayed back to fight. Why then, was he so afraid? How pathetic did he have to be to fear the scorn of a bunch of refugees?
But despite his thoughts, he continued his wish to cower from them.
Why had he even come here?
He recognized a few people from larger raids he had been on, meaning the Sarfans were already finished with their business when raiders started returning home.
By the grace of the gods, most were too occupied with their survival to notice or remember him.
Authority figures among what was left of his people seemed to be few and far between. But among the tents made from striped sails, one was far bigger than the rest. Bjorn thought it was a safe bet that whatever impromptu leader they’d chosen was living there.
“God’s thumbs…” Cecile muttered, “They’re all sick. They don’t have the plague, but I see boils and blisters. Watch yourself.”
“They haven’t been treated at all.” Bjorn said.
“Sklava probably lacks the resources. I mean, considering the Nikan occupancy and the Plague they’re more worried about among their own people.”
“Has it gotten this bad everywhere?” Bjorn asked.
“It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think so.”
Bjorn's head snapped up as a man’s screams echoed from somewhere among the refugees, accompanied by a dim flash of light. Mothers sheltered their children from the agonizing noise until it vanished.
He gulped before entering the large tent.
“E-Excuse me?” Bjorn said in his native language.
An elderly woman sat eating a stew at a table that had been set up in the middle of the tent’s floorspace.
The woman looked up. Both her and Bjorn’s eyes widened with recognition.
“B-Bjorn?” the woman asked.
“Instructor Torhild!” Bjorn exclaimed.
“You speak like you know her,” Cecile said in Koini.
“She’s one of my old training instructors. Taught me everything I know about the spear...” Bjorn said before running over to his old teacher.
“We thought you had died…” Torhild said. “Your shipmates said-”
“My shipmates don’t matter. I don’t know what happened to them, but they dropped me at Pomedua. The quarantine isle.” He rolled up his sleeve to reveal his plague scars.
His teacher let out a small gasp and started to step away.
“It’s alright. I won’t die from it and you won’t catch it,” Bjorn assured her. “I have no symptoms. And I can do this…”
Bjorn willed his scars to crackle with blue energy.
“I can turn it off and on at will. There’s nothing to worry about,” he said.
The old woman seemed to relax slightly, though it seemed she was trying to process the fact that he was alive and had some kind of supernatural ability, “Who’s your friend?”
She had chosen to ignore it. Bjorn didn’t blame her. This all was still overwhelming for him as well.
“This is one of my travel companions. The quarantine island was attacked by Nikan soldiers, but some of us Unafflicted escaped. Her name is Cecile.” Bjorn said.
Cecile gave a slight wave, likely able to tell he was introducing her.
“I’m just glad you’re alright.” Torhild sighed, “Our number of warriors has dwindled so much…”
“What about you? What has happened since I left? Did my family make it?”
“Your parents...they stayed back to fight.” she muttered, “I’m sorry. They didn’t come with us.”
Bjorn blinked, “What? No…No, that’s not…”
His lungs started to quiver, but he refocused. He would have time to grieve later. He needed more answers.
“Is it true the Sarfans took over the whole of our homeland?” he asked. “Is there any possibility that the warriors managed to live?”
His teacher scoffed emptily, “I wish it were just the Sarfans.”
“What do you mean?” Bjorn felt the weight of dread pull heavy on his chest.
“No one would believe the truth if we told them, so we said it was the Sarfans to get ourselves asylum,” Torhild said. “But the people who attacked us...no, they weren’t people. They were Jotunns.”
Bjorn stepped back, “What?”
“Jotunns, Bjorn! Frost giants!” Torhild sounded like she was pleading for someone and anyone to do something. Bjorn wasn’t used to hearing helplessness in his people. It was a chilling sensation.
“That’s...that’s impossible. Jotunns are just...myths. Fairy Tales,” Bjorn said, his brow furrowing as though tensing the muscle would lead to some kind of revelation.
Jotunns were a popular antagonist of Skaldic epics told by the many poets among Bjorn’s people. They were dark reflections of the Ascommani from works of fiction.
Only children believed such creatures truly existed.
“They were twice as tall as our largest warriors.” Torhild said, “With blue skin and the ability to control the ice and snow itself. They came ashore and just started slaughtering our people. Ask the other raiders. They helped protect us as we were fleeing.”
“What did she say?” Cecile asked, “You keep saying ‘Jotunn’. What is that?”
“Frost giants…” Bjorn said, “It wasn’t Sarfans who attacked us. She says it was giants.”
Cecile frowned, “What?”
“I have to confirm this with others who may have witnessed it.” Bjorn said. He turned to his teacher, “If what you say is true...I have to fight them. If not to save my parents, then to save our home. To have a threat of divine origins like this...I can only assume a divine weapon must be used to combat them.”
Torhild nodded, “Gods be with you, Bjorn. And...I’m sorry for what happened when we last met. If you could find it in your heart to forgive us...I would be eternally grateful.”
“What’s happened has happened,” Bjorn muttered. “I’m not so petty as to care about that when our people are on the brink of extinction.”
He left the tent, followed by Cecile.
“What’s all this about giants?” Cecile asked, dumbfounded.
“According to my teacher, giant men with blue skin attacked Ascomarch. We know them as Jotunns in my culture. But...I had thought of them as only fairy tales before.”
“Are you sure she didn’t hallucinate or something?”
“The way she spoke of them...it felt raw,” Bjorn said.
“Bjorn...Bjorn Olafsson?”
The familiar voice made Bjorn’s skin go cold. His heart stopped in his chest. He slowly moved his gaze to the source. Why hadn’t he seen her before?
This? Of all the things that could’ve gone wrong today, the gods decide to throw this on top of it all? His parents were probably dead and his home was overrun with fairytale creatures, but...why? Why this?
The woman was slightly older than him. Two years and four months exactly. She had a head of blonde hair, half of which she grew out, half of which she shaved off, with azure eyes brighter than the sky. She was wrapped in bandages, covered in injuries and walking on a splint.
“Katla.” Bjorn could barely form the words in his mind, much less on his tongue.
“You seem...well,” Katla said. “We thought you’d died…”
Bjorn’s breath started to quicken as his heart pounded in his head. He had to leave...He moved to step back into the tent.
A small hand wrapped around his wrist, stopping him from making it to safety. His gaze snapped to Cecile. Her face was one of confusion and scrutiny. Just like the rest.
No. No, she was concerned.
“Bjorn...what’s wrong?” she asked.
Bjorn took a deep breath, “It’s nothing.”
With all the willpower in his body, he forced himself to turn back to Katla. He refused to move his gaze from the ground.
“I’m glad you’re alive, but...you have some gall coming here like nothing happened. You know, Askel left me after what you did,” Katla scowled.
“I already said I was wrong…” Bjorn’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I just wanted to know what happ-”
“You’ve yet to apologize to h-” Katla said, before breaking into a sudden coughing fit.
“What’s wrong with her?” Bjorn asked, turning to Cecile.
“She has plague. The Plague,” Cecile said.
“What?” Bjorn’s eyes widened.
Cecile moved in and pressed her hand to Katla’s chest as she coughed. When the fit died down, she put pressure on other parts of Katla’s body, “Her lungs are strong, but they’re weakening. She’s gone untreated for a long time.”
“Can you even stop this?” Bjorn asked.
“I can’t cure it, but there are some remedies that might work to stave off the symptoms,” Cecile said. “Is there a medical tent somewhere?”
Katla weakly pointed to a medium sized tent right next to Torhild’s tent. Cecile and Bjorn helped Katla in. His head was swirling with questions and scary hypotheticals. His chest felt ready to implode on itself.
Inside the tent, were more sickbeds than Bjorn imagined could have been fit in the limited floorspace.
Most were occupied by plague victims, who were being treated by shamanic rituals, courtesy of the surviving shamans.
Cecile groaned upon seeing the Ascomanni’s less than sophisticated practice of medicine.
Katla was laid down in an empty bedroll.
“Where are your plague scars?” Cecile asked.
Katla tried to pull up her shirt. Cecile did it for her, to reveal black scars around the left side of her throat, shoulder and ribs.
“I assume you have at least some basic herbs here,” Cecile said. “Shaman! Get me radish, bishopwort, garlic, wormwood, helenium, cropleek and hollowleek boiling in butter with red nettle and celandine!”
Bjorn wanted to do something to help. With all his newfound power, with his command over thunder and lightning, surely there was something he could do.
As one of the shamans did as she asked, Cecile started checking Katla’s vitals again. Bjorn felt the widening maw of powerlessness start to consume his thoughts. But there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t fight a disease.
Why should he even care? She had reminded him that she hated him. Maybe it was better for him this way. But no fiber in his being would allow that statement to ring true. How much of a coward did he have to be to wish for someone’s death to get them to stop berating him?
A shaman came back with the ointment and Cecile started to spread it by hand over Katla’s scars. She groaned as the ointment started to hiss on the markings.
“What’s happening?” Bjorn asked.
“The herbs are repelling the pain, but it’s showing resistance. To the Plague, certain medicine acts like an offensive weapon against it,” Cecile said. “We just need to scare it enough to calm down.”
Cecile slathered more ointment on the scars as the shamans and conscious patients turned their attention to her.
After the second coat, the hissing started to subside. The Scars had lost their color quite a bit and Katla was starting to calm down.
Then she screamed.
Bright lights flared up from the scars, as well as her eyes and mouth.
“No!” Bjorn shouted.
Bjorn didn’t know what it was, but he felt a tug on his own Scars towards her. He rushed to her side and grabbed her glowing shoulder. Bjorn joined her in cries of pain as his own Scars glowed. But her Scars seemed to dim, if only slightly.
Energy crackled along his skin, causing Cecile to back away. His muscles tensed as though the density within them was growing the longer he touched her. There was so much of it. The chill of power scraped against his bones like the blade of a knife. He couldn’t contain it.
Bjorn reached his hand into the air as thunder clapped with a sonic power unbeknownst to anyone in that tent. A bolt of lightning streaked from his fingertips, shooting into the sky and darkening the clear sky with its blinding light.
Katla’s glowing subsided and stopped, as Bjorn’s hand smoked. The shamans and patients looked at him in awe, as did Cecile.
And only seconds later, Katla’s scar completely vanished from her skin.
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