Post by Mr. C on Apr 12, 2009 17:09:10 GMT -5
XII.
The wooden demon they flew in on glided to a halt amidst dense brush that overhung the banks of the English river. The two pagan brothers pulled the dragon-ship up on to the banks and covered it over with the forestry so as not to blow their cover and began to stalk their way inland. Crouching tight to the ground, Cross and Glaeg slithered towards the destination that they had eyed before even landing, the Cross-men’s home. With weapons at the ready, they quickly, quietly began to storm the large stone monastery that sat ahead. Without speaking it, they both knew the other’s aim as they made their way along using bush and shadow as cover.
There would be no way the two of them dressed in their Viking war gear would be able to enter the English village without giving themselves away. Tonight, they were assassins and thusly needed to find the proper cover, and here is where they would get it. They would take down these foolish Cross-men, the cowardly cretins. The fools with their blasphemous scriptures stopped at nothing to press their beliefs on the Vikings, their stupid beliefs of a lone and all-powerful God, a disgraceful mockery of the true All-Father. Tonight, Hammer and Glaeg would be more than happy to terrorize these weaklings, these scholarly snakes, and with furious, blood-thirsty cries Hammer and Glaeg tore the door asunder and charged in to the encampment.
The monks knew immediately who this would be and ran in fear, for many times they had been through a similar situation, the blood-thirsty sinners pillaged this place many times. They line these heavenly walls with hellish gore, steal all of the religious riches and ride off in to the night with them. By now the Cross-men knew when the barbarians came, the best course of action was two-fold, run as fast as you can and pray even harder. But they could never in their wildest dreams realize the ferocity of the two men that came would utilize. Many times, monks were able to escape and later tell the horror stories of the ambush. Not this night, not with these Vikings.
Glaeg stopped one quick-footed monk just short of the door at the shins, using his iron broadsword to sever the leg three-quarters of the way down. The man toppled forward on to his own severed pieces before Glaeg issued him entrance to their false heavens. The man who lived a life of worship would soon find that all of his prayers were for not, and the rest of his time he’d spend in Nifflehelm for his cowardice. For the world is full of chaos and one is to fight for himself and himself alone - not some faulty, face-less presence. But on the other side of the room, Glaeg’s partner was fighting for a far different reason. Not to end the lives of these morons, to show them what’s their after-lives will truly be like. Brett Cross fought the Cross-men for a far more personal reason.
A grumbling yell drowned out two cut-short death wails as Cross stepped in and swung a far larger broadsword of his own, dividing cleanly the torsos of two monks that stood in front of him. Their color-deprived faces looked down in horror as the brown cloth of their robes split wide and out poured their bodies’ entrails. Then, turning his wrists at the end of the swing, Cross brought the blade back up, this time separating the flesh at their necks and causing both heads to topple from their posts. All three pieces fell in to blood-puddles with a sickening thump as Cross flicked the dribbles of red from Brandrwulf, his illustrious new blade. Only fitting was it that Cross killed these prophets, these apostles, these men of God with the first swipes of his new-found weapon. For, Brett was like them in ways that made him sick to his stomach and unable to change them. His father, the man he hunted for now, had named him with respect to this false God. Brett Cross, an Anglicized perversion of what he truly was. At heart, he knows he’s “The Norse Hammer”, but despite what he considers himself, that’s not who he is. He is Brett Cross, and will forever be likened to this pathetic excuse for a faith. The Cross-men, they were fools, idiots, mislead simpletons at best. And Brett Cross, “The Norse Hammer” was certainly none of those things. He’s a driven warrior, he’s a ruthless fighter, he’s the picture of Viking perfection, and definitely not one of them.
Cross growled and ran two fingers down the fuller of his wondrously adorned blade and then wiped the gore off on his chest before turning to see Glaeg finish off two more monks with a quick slash of the steel. Brett Cross, he hated these men, hated them for being likened to him. He hated these men and hated the ideas they supported and right now, the main concern of his strayed from killing Oleg to ridding this monastery of every memory it had of the monks. His thoughts strayed from his first ever title defense this Sunday to the tag-match this Monday. It was a gimmicked match that Warrior made for the fans, pitting two unlikely alliances against each other to further two feuds at once. Cute, but pointless. For Cross did not care if he won or lost, what would it prove? It’s not a one-on-one contest, and he’s beaten both his partner and his opponent in Joe Dark. If there was anything to look forward to in all of this, it would be breaking Jeremy Sterling to pad his legacy further. This match was pointless, it was unnecessary, it was filler, but all the same, Cross was concentrated on it fully. He was unconcerned about his Pure Title defense at Young Gunz, unconcerned about defeating his father Oleg; he was totally focused on killing these false prophets, on beating Sterling and Joe Dark.
Because that’s exactly what they are. Jeremy Sterling, an EUW legend or so he claims, but at the same time, nothing more than a glorified mid-card blowhard. And Joe Dark? A legend in his own right, but by nothing more than longevity. The true claim-to-fame for Sterling’s partner and Cross’ #1 Contender is that he’s survived so many years of ass-kickings and still comes back for more. It’s sad, the two of them are pathetic, but they’re still held in high regard, respected, and believed in. But, why? What do they have to show for themselves? They have no legacy. Just like the Cross-men’s God. Nothing to show for himself, but he’s believed in anyway. It made Cross sick to be likened to such a ludicrous concept, and thusly wanted nothing more than to drain all the blood from their bodies and send a message to this false Father, that the All-Father, Odin the Warrior is the true God and his prophets are the ones who are the strongest, his messengers are not just messengers, they’re an army. And this way is what’s right, because this way is what’s strongest. And, through his anger, and the gurgled cries of two more monks that Glaeg dispatched, neither Viking could hear the prayers and pleads of the lone survivor in this temple.
One monk who had been hiding beneath their scripture table was clutching his prayer beads tightly, begging to his God but he never came. Then, as Glaeg and Cross both turned to one another, the monk took the break in the action to make a run for it. He got up and took off in a full-on sprint, headed up the stone spiral staircase up to the bell at the top of the monastery’s tower. It was a fixture used during worship, used to tell time, but also as a warning of invading forces. He ran for his cowardly life, looking to save himself and the lives of others. Instead of attempting to fight, to die with honor, he died a coward. As his dead body slumped in to the stairs and he slid down them, guided by a trail of red, Cross made his way over and unburied the throwing axe from within the monk’s back.
”Glaeg! Two robes are all we need from ‘ere, other’n that destroy the whole damned place.”
For as much hate as Hammer had for this Odin-forsaken place, he kept his wits about him; they surely couldn’t get to Oleg dressed as barbarians and certainly not as ones covered in Cross-blood. Glaeg and Brett tore everything apart, shredding scriptures, ripping tapestries, defiling everything in this holy place, not so much looking for anything as just generally destroying. As they destroyed, Brett’s mind slowly began to wander, his thoughts turning from destroying the works of a false God to the true reason why he’d landed on English soil, the night-visions he’d been having for weeks since Oleg visited the Viking homeland. Dream or not, the emotions came back like a furnace blast, and Cross remembered how real everything had felt. How his home was destroyed, how his friend was killed, and how the life had drained completely out of him. He remembered looking through blurry eyes at the world around him, remembered how terrifying it was that nothing could become focused besides death and helfire, nothing until his eyes landed on his father Oleg. And then he remembered the pain of watching how casually he retrieved Brandrwulf from the pool of crimson gore and headed off, how disgusting it was to see him care nothing about his son’s demise, nor the demise of his homeland.
Cross vowed through clenched teeth as he shattered the wooden braces of a large book case spilling the sacrilegious text to the sticky-red cobbled floor that Joe Dark would not be one of those four horsemen that came to strip him of his title, of his status as God of Midgaard, to take Brandrwulf from his grasp. Joe Dark’s a joke of a fighter, plain and simple, and there’s a reason he has never held a title and why Cross is the current Pure Champion. Because Joe Dark is a nobody, a peon, a punching bag, a waste of a life. In Cross’s mind, he continues on, thinking of a hundred horrible things to say of Joe Dark, to say of Sterling, to say of Oleg, but only until the call from upstairs draws him from his angry trance.
”’Ammer! I’ve found some robes and I think this one’ll even fit you! This must’a been one damn fat bastard!”
Cross followed the red path up the stairs with a wide smirk and found where Glaeg stood holding two brown and hooded robes, grinning proudly. And, sure enough, they both fit perfectly, that monk truly was a damn fat bastard. For a half a second, Cross felt sorry for the man, being an idiot and a glutton, but the thought passed very quickly as the moon was slowly setting in the sky and they didn’t have much time to get to the village. With their weapons expertly concealed, the two pagan warriors pulled the hoods up over their faces and headed off down the trail looking like two wanderers, two traveling prophets, albeit very fit and nourished ones.
It would be a long voyage, certainly, but no longer than the quest to Cross’s first title defense, and he was anxious for both. For a Viking, there were not many instances where anxiety came in to play; in fact there was only one time, when you had to wait for a fight. Being in the fight, that was no problem, a Viking lived for it. But not knowing when you’d get to fit again, that was the most uncomfortable situation. Cross knew no matter whom he faced, Joe Dark, Sterling, both of them together, or his father Oleg, he would come out on top. He just didn’t like the long trek to get there.
